This is going to be short today. The BLS Jobs Report for February is out and as usual now the 275,000 jobs added exceeded the 199,000 expectations. At the same time the Household survey part of the report has the Unemployment rate rising to 3.9% (still under 4%) and very much as expected.
This is going to be short because all this is doing is confirming everything we already knew and has enough data points in it that anybody looking at it in isolation can draw a conclusion to suit their bias.
A single month’s initial data before revisions is just to noisy to draw firm conclusions. It is only when averaged over several months that anything more than a signal of trends or breaking of a trend can become clear. This report just confirms we have a strong labor market that shows no real signs of weakening any time soon. The bump in unemployment is balanced by an increase in the hours worked and more temporary work. The FED will see this as confirmation of their position and so Rates will probably not be lowered this month but will be by June. Wages continue to rise just above the inflation rate so enough for workers to get ahead but not enough to be worrisome. All we see is a strong economy supporting a strong labor market and a strong labor market skewed in a way to support a strong economy.