September jobs report - will higher wages, more jobs attract workers?
Walser Wealth Management CEO Rebecca Walser on the impact of the Federal Reserve policy on the economy and investors' portfolios and the outlook for the job market.
The September jobs report will be released Friday – and expectations are high following a solid private-sector unemployment report and a dip in weekly jobless claims.
Beyond the headline number, there are a few key things that economists will look for – wage growth, namely will higher wages and plentiful jobs attract more people back into the market.
August’s employment report was positive, with unemployment remaining at 3.9 percent and wage growth, which has been stagnant, moving up to 2.9 percent from a year earlier. But, workers remain sidelines. The labor-force participation rate and the employment-to-population rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 62.7 percent and 60.3 percent, respectively.
The lack of workers reentering the market despite the great employment landscape has stumped some economists while others attribute it to the changing employment landscape which includes the gig economy and the increase in automation.
Analysts polled by Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters) expect the U.S. economy added 185,000 jobs in September with the unemployment rate ticking down to 3.8 percent.
On Wednesday, ADP reported 230,000 private-sector jobs were added in September, surpassing expectations for 184,000.