1/4./9 CNBC:
- Nonfarm payrolls surged by 312,000 in December. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting payroll growth of just 176,000.
- Wages jumped 3.2 percent from a year ago and 0.4 percent over the previous month. The year-over-year increase is tied with October for the best since April 2009.
- The unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent as more workers joined the labor force....
Job creation ended 2018 on a powerful note, with nonfarm payrolls surging by 312,000 in December though the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent.
The jobless rate, which was last higher in June, rose for the right reason as 419,000 new workers entered the workforce and the labor force participation rate increased to 63.1 percent. The participation level was up 0.2 percentage points from November and 0.4 percentage points compared with a year earlier.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons held steady at 7.6 percent.
In addition to the big job gains, wages jumped 3.2 percent from a year ago and 0.4 percent over the previous month. The year-over-year increase is tied with October for the best since April 2009. The average work week rose 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours....
The U.S. central bank raised interest rates four times in 2018 in an effort to prevent the economy from overheating, but President Donald Trump has criticized the Fed for endangering the economic recovery.
Futures traders expect the Fed to hold steady through the year, and in fact are pricing in a 45 percent of a rate cut by the end of 2019.
That evil Trump: why Democrats want him removed from office. Unemployed people are dependent on the government,
A recession is overdue, and the economy is looking bubbly, which is often a sign that it is hitting a peak. The stock market is already signalling a turn-down. I suppose the fed can keep pumping in money for a long time, which we will all play for in the future.
ReplyDeleteBut, who knows... the modern economy is a bit weird.
And when the recession comes, it will still be Trump's fault that the business cycle still exists and he can't eliminate the laws of economics, never mind that expansions are generally larger and longer than the subsequent contractions, and nobody really likes an 8 year recovery that is indistinguishable from a mild recession, and people explain it away with a sympathetic but dismissive, "In this economy."
ReplyDelete