It’s the first week of the month and you know what that means: A full data docket in the US.

May payrolls is the obvious headliner. Economists are looking for 125,000 from the NFP print, a meaningful downshift from the prior two months’ readouts, which’ll be revised for better or worse.

This is the first US jobs report to “fully” incorporate the uncertainty brought on by “Liberation Day” and the dizzying succession of de-escalations and re-escalations which played out over the ensuing weeks.

Employers (i.e., businesses) don’t love an indeterminate operating environment. “One should anticipate a degree of influence from the trade war,” BMO’s Ian Lyngen remarked. “After all, uncertainty breeds indecision.”

That’s not to say the US labor market’s about to roll over. At the risk of jinxing jobs, I dare say I’ve given up on a Wile E. Coyote “gravity moment” for the NFP headline, and that means I’m similarly skeptical on the prospects for a deep recession. Jobs are the linchpin, and until payrolls start shrinking, the economy’s unlikely to buckle.

Assuming no downward revisions (there will be revisions to March and April, it’s just a matter of which direction and how they net), a consensus print would actually push the three-month moving average up, as the February slowdown drops out of the lookback. The jobless rate’s seen steady at 4.2%.

Barring an anomalously poor result, the release will have no impact on the outcome of the June FOMC gathering. The Fed’s not going to cut no matter how many times Donald Trump invites Jerome Powell to The White House between now and mid-month.

Eventually, the psychological tyranny associated with unprecedented levels of uncertainty may undercut spending enough to torpedo the labor market — and the second estimate of Q1 GDP showed that in fact, the spending impulse was much weaker during the first three months of 2025 than initially reported — but for now, there’s not a lot of evidence to support a macro doomsday narrative.

Last week’s Conference Board update and the final read on Michigan sentiment for May suggested the “TACO” tariff pauses put a floor under consumer moods, even as households remain anxious. Trump’s approval rating bottomed at 45% in late April. It’s up nearly 3ppt since then, and as long as he avoids another total debacle — i.e., eschews the temptation to deliver another macro broadside on par with “Liberation Day” — the drag on the economy from his agenda’s more likely to resemble a slow bleed than a massive hemorrhage.

Both ISM reports for May are due this week, manufacturing on Monday and services on Wednesday. Economists see the former printing 49.5, just south of the demarcation line separating expansion from contraction, while the services measure’s seen at 52.1, decent but by no means gangbusters.

Macro watchers will eye the ISM price gauges closely in light of the tariffs. As illustrated above, both are perched at multi-year highs.

Also on deck: JOLTS (the headline’s seen at 7.1 million, which would be the fewest job openings since December 2020), ADP private hiring (seen at 110,000), Challenger job cuts and a bevy of Fed speakers.

Oh, and the ECB will almost surely cut rates on Thursday. Again. It’d be the eighth cut of the cycle, and assuming he’s not too busy to notice, Trump’s likely to see in the move an excuse to berate the Fed on social media.