Ahead of today’s jobs report, Nomura’s Bilal Hafeez summarized the worst case scenario as “weak employment but high wage growth.” And moments ago, we got one half of this scenario materializing when the BLS reported that in September only 134K jobs were added, well below the 185K expected (and certainly far lower than the 500K print implied by the latest ISM report). This was the lowest print going back to March 2017 when only 50K jobs were added.
However, offsetting the September weakness was the revision to the August jobs report, which was pushed higher from 201K to 270K, while July was revised from 147K to 165K. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 87,000 more than previously reported.
Even as payrolls missed, the unemployment rate ticked lower again, sliding from 3.9% to 3.7%, below the 3.8% consensus estimate, and the lowest print in 49 years.
The more important average hourly earnings print came in line, with wages rising 0.3% on the month, and 2.8% on the year, both in line with expectations.
