Those looking for definitive answers to the myriad macro questions confronting investors and policymakers on the eve of the first Fed rate cut were left wanting Friday, when the US government delivered a monthly employment report which, on some vectors anyway, was inconclusive.

The world’s largest economy added 142,000 jobs in August, the BLS said. Technically, that was a miss. Consensus wanted 165,000. But if you benchmark against US rates rather than economists’ forecasts, the headline counted as better than feared. In recent days, traders took to hedging a “brake slam” moment — an abrupt deterioration in labor market conditions indicative of a hard landing. Instead, the numbers suggested a kind of glide path.

To be sure, revisions made the direction of travel clear. And if it’s a hard landing narrative you seek, you can make the case with the revisions. July’s 114,000 headline — the print that spooked markets early last month — was revised down to show a gain of just 89,000. June was revised sharply lower to just 118,000.

The three-month moving average for the NFP headline is now 116,000. Again: The direction of travel is plain as day.

Headed in, most observers (present company included) agreed that a sub-100,000 print for the August headline would cement a 50bps rate cut at the September FOMC meeting. In hindsight, the possibility that the July headline would get revised lower to show a reading below 100,000 didn’t get enough attention. Now here we are looking at just that outcome and trying to weigh it against a rebound in August which could itself be revised lower a month from now.

By industry, construction, healthcare and social assistance accounted for more than half of the net job gain in August. Manufacturing payrolls shrank by 24,000. Suffice to say the “internals” weren’t especially encouraging.

The unemployment rate ticked lower, to 4.2%, in line with consensus. Last month, the UNR jumped to 4.3%, triggering the Sahm rule and perpetuating a burgeoning market panic that crescendoed one business day later in one of the most chaotic sessions since March of 2020.

Notably, average hourly earnings overshot, rising 0.4% MoM and 3.8% YoY. The MoM reading was the warmest since January.

We’re supposed to be “past” wage-price spiral worries by now. And we are. Definitively. Still, just about the last thing the Fed needs at a time when the Committee’s reaction function has shifted to a de facto single labor market mandate is rekindled inflation jitters.

To be clear: One AHE overshoot isn’t going to matter in the grand scheme of things. And you could argue that at this point in the cycle, it’s a good thing that wage growth is still robust. But when taken in conjunction with overshoots on both ISM price gauges this week, the wage data in the jobs report raises the stakes for next week’s CPI release, which are anyway now higher thanks to the inconclusive read on headline jobs growth.

Intuitively, slower job creation (to say nothing of job cuts) should keep a lid on wage growth. Jerome Powell hasn’t declared victory over inflation, but he has said, repeatedly and explicitly, that the labor market’s no longer a source of upside inflation risk. I think he’s right. But he’s been wrong before. And so have I.

The employment level readout from the household survey was a non-event in Friday’s release. It showed a 168,000 advance.

It’s worth mentioning that the two surveys are now in agreement at least on the recent pace of monthly job gains.

Bottom line: The size of the September Fed cut remained an open question following the release. I thought the August jobs report would be decisive. So did pretty much everyone else. But it wasn’t.

If you’re a dove on the Committee, the revisions to the headline NFP prints for June and July certainly make the case for a 50bps first cut, particularly when considered with the sub-100k ADP reading for August and the ongoing normalization evidenced by the JOLTS release.

If you’re a hawk, the rationale for a half-point cut when the most recent read on job creation was 142,000 (even if trend growth over three months is much lower), Americans are still spending money (even if it’s money they don’t have) and the services sector’s holding up just fine, isn’t obvious.

And so, it’ll be up to next week’s inflation updates to decide the issue. I’m still biased towards 50bps in September, a skip in November and perhaps another 50bps in December, with the caveat that if the revisions which accompany the September jobs report look anything like those the market got on Friday, the case for moving in November would be strong.