Federal Reserve policymakers got a green light to start a round of interest rate cuts this month after a government report on Friday (Sep 6) showed United States employers added far fewer workers than economists had expected in August and July.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 142,000 jobs last month after a downwardly revised rise of 89,000 in July, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls would increase by 160,000 jobs after a previously reported gain of 114,000 in July.
To Inflation Insights President Omair Sharif, the takeaway for the Fed was clear.
“Time to cut 50 basis points,” Sharif said, referring to his expectation that the Fed will cut rates at its Sep 17-18 meeting by an upsized half of a percentage point, and not the smaller quarter-percentage-point move expected by most analysts in the run-up to Friday’s report.
The three-month average monthly payroll rise is now down to 116,000, far less than the 200,000 that analysts say is needed to meet current job-growth needs in a population that has swelled through immigration.
For two of those months, Sharif said, the payroll gain was small enough that it could be a figment of statistical noise. “In other words, we don’t know if payrolls were any different than zero in two of the last three months,” he said.
Source: CNA
