US: Starting to labour? – ING

By FXStreet James Smith, Economist at ING, suggests that the Friday’s Labour Report was fairly mixed, with sub-consensus payrolls growth, but better wage data and it won’t change too many minds on FOMC – the key now lies in the activity data.

Key Quotes

“The employment element of the Friday’s labour report was a little disappointing. The headline non-farm payrolls figure came in at 160k, below consensus although pretty close to the 156k indicated by ADP earlier in the week. The household survey measure of the labour force recorded its largest monthly fall since June last year, which alongside a fairly sharp fall in the household measure of employment and a small tick up in unemployment, kept the unemployment rate at 5%, in line with our forecast.

The only real positive in the data came from wage growth, which came in a touch above consensus with a 0.3% MoM gain. This takes the year-on-year comparison up to 2.5%, which is more in line with the average rate of wage growth indicated by other indicators.

Taken on aggregate, the labour report was probably best described as a fairly neutral and crucially, is unlikely to change too many minds on the FOMC about the timing of …read more

Source:: FX Street