American jobs
@Robert J. Teuwissen:
The U.S. jobs report was much stronger than expected with a whopping 339,000 jobs (195,000 expected and the previous two months were also revised upward by 93,000), but the unemployment rate rose from 3.4 percent to 3.7 percent (the highest level in seven months) while wage growth slowed to 4.3 percent. Hours worked also fell from 34.4 to 34.3, the lowest level since 2011 (not including the April 2020 drop during the corona crisis). Employers are apparently in no hurry to lay people off yet. Profit margins are too good for that and the labour market is tight. Job growth was carried by the service sector. Given the inflation data for the coming months, this is insufficient for the Fed to raise interest rates in June or July. Now that the Fed has started pausing, it is also not obvious to ra