The economy added only 134,000 new jobs in September–probably a result of Hurricane Florence. But a huge revision to August and July job gains more than offset the weak current month.
Economists surveyed surveyed by Briefing.com had projected the economy would add 184,000 jobs in September.
For August the Labor Department revised number of jobs gained in the economy upward to 270,000 from 201,000. The July number was revised to 165,000 from 147,000.
The official unemployment rate fell in September to 3.7% from 3.9% in August. The full U6 unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those workers with part-time jobs who would like full-time work, actually increased to 7.5% from 7.4% in August.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in September, matching projections from economists. That took the 12-month gains in average hourly earnings to 2.8%, a slight dip from the 2.9% 12-month rate of increase in August.
In short nothing here to change the near certainty of another interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve in December. And nothing to remove Fed fears of a quick pick up in wage inflation sometime in the next 12 months.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.23%, up another four basis points. The yield on the 2-year Treasury note climbed to 2.89%.
The dollar fell as the Bloomberg Dollar Spot index slipped 0.05%.
Major U.S. stock market indexes continued their downward trend with the Standard & Poor’s 50 stock index down 0.74% as of noon New York time and the Dow Jones Industrial Average off 0.88%. The NASDAQ dropped 1.42% as technology stocks continued to lead the way down. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) fell 0.87%.
We’ve finally seen a significant increase in fears of volatility as the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) was up 18.07% to 16.79.
Oil prices bucked the trend and moved upwards with U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate up 0.46% to $74.67 a barrel and international benchmark Brent edging up 0.15% to $84.71 a barrel.
