The U.S. labor market is beginning to show some signs of slowing down, a key economic report revealed Friday, bringing some hope to Wall Street as it prepares for a longer period of elevated interest rates than initially hoped.
The labor market is beginning to cool.
The U.S. economy added 209,00 jobs last month, according to Labor Department data released Friday morning, coming far short of economist estimates of 240,000 and declining from May’s 339,000 jobs added.
The unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 3.6%, meeting estimates of 3.6%.
Friday’s jobs report came a day after ADP revealed the private sector added more than twice as many jobs as forecasted last month. The elevated attention toward job growth and unemployment comes as the Fed bumps interest rates to their highest level in decades to combat inflation. Historically, inflation and unemployment have an inverse relationship, so many investors hope to see unemployment rise in the near-term, as counterintuitive as that may seem.
“You wouldn't always guess it when looking at the performance of stocks but there is mounting anxiety about the resilience of the economy and what that will mean for interest rates going into the end of this year and 2024,” Oanda analyst Craig Erlam wrote in a Friday note to clients.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated…
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