US payrolls trail forecasts as wages rise least since 2018
The U.S. labor market ended the year with less momentum as payroll gains cooled by more than forecast and wages rose at the weakest annual pace since 2018, even as unemployment held at a half-century low of 3.5%.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 145,000 in December, the least since May, after a downwardly revised 256,000 advance the prior month, according to a Labor Department report Friday. That compares with the median estimate of 160,000 in Bloomberg’s survey of economists. Average hourly earnings climbed a below-forecast 2.9% from a year earlier, the first sub-3% reading since July 2018.
Futures traders maintained the amount of easing they expect from the Federal Reserve. Treasury yields, the Bloomberg dollar index and S&P 500 futures all gave up ground in the immediate aftermath of the report before recovering.
While the payrolls figure may be consistent with forecasts for gradual moderation, the wage numbers suggest that the labor market isn’t as tight as the unemployment rate indicates. Federal Reserve policy makers are likely to keep holding interest rates steady after cutting three times in 2019 to insure against risks from trade-policy uncertainty and sluggish global growth, though further weakness could raise concerns about the durability of the record-long U.S. expansion.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-payrolls-trail-forecasts-as-wages-rise-least-since-2018/ar-BBYPlGZ?ocid=msn360
