US employers added only 103,000 jobs in March as against 185,000 new jobs expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Jobs have been added for 90 straight months, the longest phase on record. January’s job addition number was revised sharply downward from 239,000 to 176,000. Wage growth was 2.7% which was largely down to tax cuts driven wage rises earlier during the year rather than real wage inflation.
Any addition under 80,000 new jobs a month would cause the unemployment rate to rise. As we covered earlier, unemployment has always hit record multi year lows on an average 6 to 12 months before the start of a recession.
The graphs below might help visualise it better, Continue reading “Weekly overview: US employment numbers; Bond yields fall globally over the past month; Stock markets volatility”