There were plenty of positive numbers in today’s US jobs report but few to quicken the pulse – and even fewer to move the market. Contributor Jacob Deppe, Head of Trading – Infinox.
While the unemployment rate has dipped back below 4% and the average earnings of those in work have increased, both figures will quickly be filed and forgotten.
Though the headline job creation figure came in below expectations, 157,000 is far from a failure. The markets quickly summed it up as robust rather than retreating, leaving the Dollar largely unphased and holding onto the gains it made earlier this week against both sterling and the Euro.
But lurking beneath the vanilla surface of today’s jobs report is a more bitter reality – the American job creation miracle is slowly running out of road.
With the number of people re-entering the labour market falling and the US lurching ever close to full employment, the increasing shortage of staff threatens to slam the brakes on an otherwise booming economy.
The benign headline figures in today’s print will instantly be relegated to historical footnotes, but the increasing tightness it revealed in the US labour market could soon emerge from the shadows as the greatest roadblock to America’s future growth.
