US payrolls grew just 29,000 in September, far short of forecasts, even as Q2 GDP was revised up to a 2.2% annualized pace. That jobless-growth split complicates how the Fed reads the labor market ahead of its October meeting.
BLS payrolls slowed to a three-month average of about 51,000 after July turned negative on revision, a pace markets took as reducing the odds of another October hike. Source
Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Situation report looked ugly on its face. Nonfarm payrolls (NFP) rose just 29,000 in September, barely a third of the roughly 90,000 economists expected, and July and August were revised down a combined 60,000 on top of that. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%. Every outlet covering this will run the obvious line: soft jobs buy the Federal Reserve (Fed) time before its next meeting. That read misses the stranger thing sitting right next to it in the same data vintage.
