U.S. stock market performance this year reminds me of the Goldilocks economy of the 1990s. Economic growth is only averaging a 1.4 percent run rate, which is hardly anything to write home about.
We created just 162,000 jobs last month. Friday's report only missed consensus by a small margin, but hours worked ticked down once again. Unfortunately, a large number of jobs being created are part-time. There are secular and political forces in place that support a continuation of this trend.
While none of this is constructive for job seekers or the real economy, a weak jobs report isn't necessarily bad news for the markets. Corporations are lean, mean, fighting machines and have learned to produce more with less.
Some employment trends like "on-call scheduling" are hitting workers and their paychecks hard. In retail, many employees are forced to call-in a few hours before their shift to check if they are needed for the day. Others may be sent home early if the company finds it is overstaffed given the workload.
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You'll notice it never says "net new jobs" only jobs created. Nor does it say "net new full time jobs"
ReplyDeletecurious, that.
Good points.
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