Our take on US Non-farm employment data – 5 July 2019
US non-farm jobs growth in June came at 224K versus forecasts as low as 160K. The employment rate for May was revised from 75K to 72K. The data announced today can be seen as an indicator of the ongoing volatility in the US employment.
Although the employment growth was above the expectations, average hourly earnings on an annual basis closely watched by the Fed remained below the expectations by a 0.1% margin at 3.1%. Unemployment rate was also worse than the expectations with 3.7%, while average hourly earnings on monthly basis failed to meet expectations with a 0.2% figure.
Increasing participation rate in labor force explains the limited rise in unemployment. Average hourly earnings increased by the same amount as the May data. In the general outlook, there is no serious negative or positive take from the data set. A limited optimism may prevail though thanks to the positive non-farm employment figure despite the negligible negative numbers in the hourly wages, and revisions.
