Proactive Investors - US nonfarm payrolls (NFPs) increased by a lower-than-expected 150,000 in October, suggesting interest rate hikes may be starting to slow economic growth, with the US Federal Reserve likely to keep rates steady for now.
Economists had expected 180,000 new jobs.
Additionally, payrolls for the previous two months were revised lower as the employment market cooled down.
In September, employers hired 297,00 more people, fewer than the 336,000 previously reported, and in August, there were 165,000 new private sector jobs, revised down from 227,000.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% while average hourly earnings rose by 0.2% month-on-month and by 4.1% on an annual basis.
“The September spike in private payrolls always looked like a fluke, and the October data continue the pattern of big increases being followed by much smaller gains,” commented Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson.
“Manufacturing payrolls fell 35K, most of which is due to the autoworkers’ strike and will reverse in November. But private services employment slowed to 110K from the outsized 218K jump in September, returning to the prior trend.”
The weakness in North American jobs data, after Canada also released a soft jobs report for October, has fueled rate cut speculation, according to Monex Europe’s head of FX Analysis, Simon Harvey.
“With the rest of the US jobs report reading soft, markets got the green light to continue purchasing high-yielding US debt, reduce USD longs, and bring forward pricing of the Fed’s easing cycle,” Harvey wrote in a client note.
“This outcome wasn’t just specific to the US, however. Canada’s October jobs report came in similarly soft, with net employment gains concentrated in part-time positions and struggling to keep pace with population growth.”
The jobs report has further cemented expectations that interest rates in the US have plateaued. Bond yields and the dollar have sold off as a result, with equities and gold moving higher, noted |Market analyst Fawad Razaqzada.
“The focus will turn to ISM services PMI later. But the jobs report further cements expectations the Fed has reached peak interest rates,” Razaqzada said.