Author: smarttalksucce

Now might be a good time for the Federal Reserve to start worrying about inflation.

August’s jobs report, besides being a big disappointment on the 235,000 headline number, also showed that even with weak hiring, wages are rising.

Average hourly earnings jumped 0.6% for the month, about double what Wall Street had been expecting, and the increase from a year ago stood at a robust 4.3%, up from a 4% rise a month ago. Even leisure and hospitality, which saw zero net job growth in August, saw wages jump 1.3% for the month and 10.3% on the year.

Those numbers come as the Fed is weighing when to start pulling back on the historically easy monetary policy in place since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some voices on Wall Street expect the wage and inflation numbers to start resonating with Fed officials.

“The 5.2% unemployment rate and rapidly rising wages suggest building inflationary pressure that will ultimately lead to more hawkish policy,” Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst wrote in a detailed analysis of the current jobs situation.

While Fed officials mostly discuss the total payroll gains, Hollenhorst said he “would expect this rhetoric to shift a bit, perhaps at the September [Federal Open Market Committee] meeting, with more focus on the high level of job openings and increasing wages.”

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell went to great lengths in his annual speech in August during the central bank’s Jackson Hole symposium to knock down concerns about rising wage pressures as well as inflation overall, despite consistently higher numbers.

“Today we see little evidence of wage increases that might threaten excessive,” Powell said during the Aug. 27 speech. Measures Powell said he follows – he did not mention the Labor Department’s monthly average hourly earnings figure – point to “wages moving up at a pace that appears consistent with our longer-term inflation objective.”

One specific measure Powell mentioned was the Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker.

That measure looks at wages on monthly and 12-month basis and then uses a three-month moving average to iron out distortions. On a smoothed level, the tracker is showing wages rising at a 3.7% pace, fairly consistent with the past few years. Without smoothing, the 12-month rate runs to 4.2%, which is the highest since 2007 and representative of how bumpy the data has gotten lately.

The Atlanta Fed will next update the tracker Friday, giving the Fed another look at potential pressures that could trigger a wage-price spiral, which economists consider “bad” inflation.

Fed officials thus far have attributed higher inflation numbers to supply issues. A continued rise in wages could signal that demand is becoming a factor.

“When it is difficult to disentangle demand from supply effects, price signals become more important to assess the extent of excess demand,” wrote Nomura chief economist Rob Subbaraman.

To be sure, there also is evidence that some of the issues that might spur inflation could abate ahead, particularly some of the supply chain issues Powell has cited.

The chairman also noted that unit labor costs remain low, meaning that companies still aren’t spending substantially more for productivity, which also could tamp down inflation.

“They’re taking a lot of solace in all these other factors,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Inflation is on their radar screen, but it’s not blinking red, not even yellow.”

The rising wage numbers under most circumstances would be considered a positive.

However, the gains trailed the headline consumer price index growth of 5.4% in July and only matched the 3.6% increase when stripping out food and energy prices in July, the most recent month for which data is available.

Some central bank officials and economists worry that easy Fed policy is feeding inflation and starting to cause more harm than help. Rising home prices and high inflation expectations from consumers are fueling some of those fears.

“It is not surprising that a combination of doubling central bank assets over the past 18 months, massive fiscal stimulus, and a skill mismatch in the labor market has resulted in inflation rising to levels not seen in decades,” wrote Komal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies. “Drilling a square peg into a round ole does not solve problems. It worsens it.”

Still, Zandi thinks Powell and the Fed will be content with allowing wages to rise for now.

“It’s not like they’re dismissing this as an issue. It’s a factor in their thinking about broader inflationary pressures,” he said. “But so far, they’d say the wage growth they’re observing is more a feature than a bug.”

Job creation for August was a huge disappointment, with the economy adding just 235,000 positions, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 720,000 new hires.

The unemployment rate dropped to 5.2% from 5.4%, in line with estimates.

August’s total — the worst since January — comes with heightened fears of the pandemic and the impact that rising Covid cases could have on what has been a mostly robust recovery. The weak report could cloud policy for the Federal Reserve, which is weighing whether to pull back on some of the massive stimulus it has been adding since the outbreak in early 2020.

“The labor market recovery hit the brakes this month with a dramatic showdown in all industries,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at jobs site Glassdoor. “Ultimately, the Delta variant wave is a harsh reminder that the pandemic is still in the driver’s seat, and it controls our economic future.”

Leisure and hospitality jobs, which had been the primary driver of overall gains at 350,000 per month for the past six months, stalled in August as the unemployment rate in the industry ticked higher to 9.1%.

Instead, professional and business services led with 74,000 new positions. Other gainers included transportation and warehousing (53,000), private education (40,000) and manufacturing and other services, which each posted gains of 37,000.

Retail lost 29,000, with the bulk coming from food and beverage stores, which saw a decrease of 23,000.

“The weaker employment activity is likely both a demand and supply story — companies paused hiring in the face of weaker demand and uncertainty about the future while workers withdrew due to health concerns,” Bank of America economist Joseph Song said in a note to clients.

The report comes with the U.S. seeing about 150,000 new Covid cases a day, spurring worries that the recovery could stall heading into the final part of the year.

“Delta is the story in this report,” said Marvin Loh, global macro strategist for State Street. “It’s going to be a bumpy recovery in the jobs market and one that pushes back against a more optimistic narrative.”

The month saw an increase of about 400,000 in those who said they couldn’t work for pandemic-related reasons, pushing the total up to 5.6 million.

“Today’s jobs report reflects a major pullback in employment growth likely due to the rising impact of the Delta variant of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy, though August is also a notoriously difficult month to survey accurately due to vacations,” said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens.

Still, the news wasn’t all bad for jobs.

The previous two months saw substantial upward revisions, with July’s total now at 1.053 million, up from the original estimate of 943,000, while June was bumped up to 962,000 from 938,000. For the two months, revisions added 134,000 to the initial counts.

Also, wages continued to accelerate, rising 4.3% on a year-over-year basis and 0.6% on a monthly basis. Estimates had been for 4% and 0.3% respectively.

An alterative measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons fell sharply, dropping to 8.9% in August from 9.6% in July.

The labor force participation rate was unchanged at 61.7%, still well below the 63.3% in February 2020, the month before the pandemic declaration.

Employment also remained well below pre-Covid levels, with 5.6 million fewer workers holding jobs and the total workforce still smaller by 2.9 million.

Another key Fed metric, the employment-to-population gauge, stood at 58.5%, up one-tenth of a percentage point from July but still well below the 61.1% pre-pandemic level. The measure looks at total jobholders against the working-age population.

August’s numbers have been volatile in past years and often see substantial revisions. They come amid other positive signs for employment.

Weekly jobless filings have fallen to their lowest levels since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020, but a large employment gap remains.

It’s not that there aren’t enough jobs out there: Placement firm Indeed estimates that there are about 10.5 million openings now, easily a record for the U.S. labor market. ZipRecruiter on Friday noted sharp gains in job postings for travel, arts and entertainment and education, generally signaling that those sectors should see strong gains ahead.

Fed officials are watching the jobs numbers closely for clues as to whether they can start easing back some of the policy help they’ve been providing since the pandemic started.

In recent weeks, central bank leaders have expressed optimism about the employment picture but said they would need to see continued strength before changing course. At stake for now is the Fed’s massive monthly bond-buying program, which could start getting scaled back before the end of the year.

However, if the jobs data gets softer, that could prompt Fed officials to wait until 2022 before tapering its purchases. Fed officials have been clear that interest rate hikes will come well after tapering starts.

“I still expect them to taper by year end,” said State Street’s Loh. “Maybe some of the more aggressive conversations about something happening in September are off the table. I think November is still a possibility.”

The Fed meets next on Sept. 21-22.