New jobs data beats expectations

Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, the private sector growth undoubtedly is where you see this really good number, I would say. Maybe "strong" is a little bit too hyperbolic here. But you saw the growth in health care, right? That's always a big driver. And if you go back the last couple of months, that's really the case. We saw health care low during the February month, because there was that big strike at one of the big health care firms. Then it came roaring back when all those people came back to work in March. And then we're seeing that trend continue in April. We also saw retail, leisure and hospitality, and transportation and warehousing is big private sector growth. Now, you mentioned the statement from the White House. I'm just going to read a little snippet of here that said, "The April jobs report smashing expectations thanks to the robust private sector growth is yet another sign the American economy remains on a solid trajectory. America added 12,600 factory construction jobs in April as trillions in investment continues to pour into American manufacturing." I just want to break that down a little bit, because manufacturing, specifically in this jobs report, actually lost jobs. Factory construction is a little bit of a different line item in how they break it out in this jobs report. We did add those jobs. So certainly, there is a lot of activity there. But when it comes to manufacturing specifically, which, remember, when we were talking about tariffs, that was the idea-- bring more of that here. We actually saw that drop. Now, again, this is a good number. But I would say that it's more a stable picture of the employment in the US. It is not super strong, especially when you zoom out on that three-month horizon because we did have such a big drop in February.

Are you at all worried about some of these numbers at all, Kelly? There's two that stood out to me. You know me. I always go in. I'm like, OK, this is what the top line says, but let's actually peek under the hood. Two things-- one, wage growth is not as strong as we wanted to see it on a month-over-month basis. On an annual basis, wages grew 3.6%. But when you compare that to the fact that in March, we saw inflation grow 3.3%, it's not that much wiggle room. And on a monthly basis, we were much lower than expected. We want to see wages growing faster than prices. That's how you feel better in terms of the share in your wallet. And then, secondly, we saw the labor force participation rate drop to its lowest rate since September 2021. And that's a mix of factors like immigration policy, as well as people just getting frustrated because they can't find a job that matches their skill set right now. It's not crazy drop-off or anything like that, but those two things are just moving in the wrong direction. All right, Kelly O'Grady, thank you so much.