What’s going on with the US labor market?
Nobody knows. Not really, anyway.
Thursday’s underwhelming BLS release posed more questions than it answered, not least of which was this: What’s up with leisure and hospitality?
Seasonally speaking, that sector — a key contributor to overall US payrolls growth — should be hiring. Instead, it’s firing. On net, anyway.
As the simple figure shows, June was the worst month for the leisure and hospitality sector in the establishment survey since 2020.
Note that although the ADP release for June suggested the economy added some leisure and hospitality jobs last month, the gain was marginal: A mere 2,000-job addition.
The decline in leisure and hospitality hiring was “a major surprise given the World Cup is on and bars and the venues themselves are busy,” ING’s James Knightley remarked. (If you can’t count on drunk soccer fans, who can you count on?)
Bloomberg echoed that. “Some economists were expecting the FIFA World Cup, which kicked off last month, to boost payrolls in the sector,” a boilerplate NFP summary read.
“It may be,” Knightley went on, “that business owners thought there would be even more excitement” around the tournament. Relatedly, it’s possible Americans just don’t give as many damns about soccer as some business owners imagined. (Remember: We like football here. Fútbol we can take or leave.)
Another ostensible mystery from Thursday’s release: The lowest prime-age participation rate in three years.
As the figure shows, the drop among the all-important 25-54 cohort was 0.6ppt, tied for the largest decline outside of the pandemic ever in data back to 1948.
I really (really) hesitate to parrot any version of a lazy “statistical anomaly” explanation, but… well, these numbers probably aren’t accurate.
Consider this: The labor force level for prime-age workers showed a 1.13 million decline. There’s no way that’s “right.” If it is, we’ve just witnessed wholesale worker disengagement.
I assume most readers know the punchline, but I’ll spell it out anyway. If this data is indeed “wrong,” don’t worry. Because Kevin Warsh “has a task force for that.”
I thought the Scots were saving our downtrodden tourist industry: Scottish soccer fans truly drank Boston bars dry during the World Cup. Up to 50,000 members of the “Tartan Army” flooded the city for matches at Gillette Stadium, causing pubs to run out of beer and scramble to schedule emergency deliveries.
Fans from powerhouse soccer nations are driving historic beer consumption during the 2026 World Cup. Supporters from countries like England, Germany, Mexico, Argentina, and the United States are leading the way. However, it is the Scottish fans who have generated the most viral drinking buzz after literally draining a flight’s entire beer supply en route to a match in Boston.
You have to love it!
Futbol is KING!
Higher gas prices and inflation have really curtailed people’s summer travel plans. Also, the World Cup games in Mexico seem much better attended than the games here in the U.S. (A lot of foreigners are not exactly thrilled with the U.S. right now.)