On the April Jobs Report

175,000 payrolls was a miss versus consensus, but completely consistent with other labor market data and indicative of robust growth. The labor force expanded, which nudged the unemployment rate up slightly. The monthly job-finding probability remains very strong. Average hourly earnings growth decelerated versus last month’s hot number, and the Q1-2024 Employment Cost Index. This caused post-FOMC optimism about rate cuts to continue, with 2.3 cuts by the January FOMC expected in the futures market now, with the first cut almost certain to come in September.