Source: Bloomberg
Molly Smith
Is the US labor market really as strong as the latest employment report, or is it affected by what unreliable adjustments?Economists are also scratching their ears.
The number of non -agricultural employment in the country increased by 517,000 in January, which was almost twice the previous month, and was higher than the estimates of all economists who were investigated by Bloomberg.Data from the Ministry of Labor also showed that the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4%, the lowest level since 1969.
Powell's words must be carefully listened to the non -agricultural data to give a lesson to the financial market
Observer can reach a consensus at least on one issue: the employment market has hardly seen the Fed's most radical interest rate hike in 10 years.
But the complexity of employment reports is in the government's annual calibration procedures and seasonal factors that may make it difficult to interpret the data.
"Seasonal adjustment factors seem to make the overall data look better, because the number of layoffs after holidays is less than previous years, and employment data has been boosted." Wells Fargo economist Sarah House and Michael Pugliese said in a report.
"We suspect that members of the Federal Public Marketing Committee will not accept the January Hyding Employment Report," they said.
Employment report consists of two surveys, one is a resident investigation, and the other is an enterprise survey.Both are affected by the fine -tuning program of the Ministry of Labor.
It is difficult to say how the Fed will look at data.Other indicators, such as the vacancy of jobs and the number of unemployed relief applicants at historic low, show that the demand for labor is roughly unchanged, and it still greatly exceeds the supply.
"It is reasonable to have a recovery in employment growth in February, but when the Fed meets in March, the labor market will remain tight," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist of Pantheon MacroEconomics, said in a report that "The Fed believes that the labor market is too tight, and the latest non -agricultural and unemployment data will not change this situation. "
