June Employment Situation report due at the bottom of the hour. Consensus looking for 190k jobs based on the establishment survey (NFP), a 4.0% unemployment rate (unch'd), and average hourly earnings for all workers up 0.3% MoM or 3.9% YoY.
206k payrolls is *not* a weak number, but it looks very close to equilibrium jobs growth (as opposed to "hot" which is what 300+k is very definitively).
Rates are down 6-7 bps on this, dollar at session lows, US equity index futures session highs (bad news is good news).
Prime age employment-population ratio has been stable at 80.8% for all of Q2, slightly below its 80.9 peak from July of last year but no sign that this key slice of workers is seeing big employment headwinds.
The slow rise in the unemployment rate is backed up by the rising median duration of unemployment. No big surge, just a steady, slow deterioration at manageable levels. The worry is this turns into a big surge as weaker labor markets snowball, but that doesn't appear to be happening yet.
Weekly pay disbursals for the private sector (weekly pay * employment, or alternatively avg hourly earnings * avg weekly hours * employment) is chugging along a bit below 5%. Given inflation's decline, this is plenty of earned income to sustain demand at levels that prevent a labor market downturn.
Same chart, added a series deflating payroll disbursals by CPI to show where we're at in real terms. ~1.7% growth, not spectacular but not bad either. Plenty to keep consumers spending.
