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US Jobless Claims Fall Again. Unit Labor Costs Rise Least In A Decade
If markets needed an offset for a weak read on US private sector hiring, jobless claims obliged.
Remember: Bad news is just bad news these days, which is to say no one celebrates weak US macro data on the notion that the dovish read-through for monetary policy outweighs the risk of a hard landing.
So, any additional evidence to suggest the US economy might be rolling over in earnest is "too much of a bad thing," so to speak.
With that in mind, initial filers were just 227,000 in the week to A
The pandemic really changed a lot of reaction functions of economic entities. Employment seems to be one. Having been burned by difficulties hiring it appears employers are doing everything they can to retain workers. In many cases that means cutting costs by restricting pay raises and hours worked, not firing outright. In housing, turnover is down because of the lock in effect of existing low rate mortgages, benefitting indirectly, new home sales. Two more obvious examples, surely there are others. It will probably awhile before things shake out and a new normal takes place. Right now forecasting is really difficult because the fundamentals are still so different.