#us-labor-market

#us-labor-market

Economists expect the US added 55,000 jobs and the unemployment rate held steady at at a fairly low 4.3%. Last month's report showed a surprisingly strong job gain in January, but revisions to last year's data meant 2025 as a whole saw the weakest growth outside a recession in over 20 years.

Even though confidence is seeping out of the US economy, employers are taking a glass‑half‑full approach and have taken on more staff than expected. While there could be anomalies in this delayed data release, given the chaos of the partial government shutdown, it does indicate that the US economy is continuing to show resilience. This has helped propel the internationally focused FTSE 100 higher in afternoon trade, as prospects for the world's largest economy appear more upbeat.

Layoff announcements this year top 1.1 million, the most since 2020 when the pandemic hit, according to the Challenger jobs report, which has taken on a bit more significance lately due to the patchy official labour market data in the wake of the US government shutdown. The firm said layoff plans hit 71,321 in November, a down from the huge (22yr high for the month) cuts announced in October...the 1.17mn total is 54% higher than the same 11-month period a year ago

It's not like there's going to be a recession ... right?

Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to boost job creation. So far this hasn't happened: the labor market is weakening and, for the first time since the Covid pandemic, is beginning to show negative job growth. According to indicators released on Friday, 22,000 non-farming jobs were added in August, far lower than the 76,000 new positions economists had been expecting to see.