Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / 119k Jobs Added: Why Do Markets Care? | S2 E096 | 11-20-25

Transcript

119k Jobs Added: Why Do Markets Care? | S2 E096 | 11-20-25 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: After all of the concerning private reports that we got during the government shutdown regarding the labor market, we finally got some government data today.
• 0:09
  Megan Horneman: It is Thursday, November the 20th, and this is Markets with Megan.
• 0:12
  Megan Horneman: If you like this podcast, subscribe, hit the alarm bell, also share it with friends, family, or colleagues.
• 0:18
  Megan Horneman: We're excited to be back to go over the economic data now that we're starting to get this released from the government.
• 0:24
  Megan Horneman: And today was the much anticipated September jobs report.
• 0:28
  Megan Horneman: And this jobs report came in better than anticipated.
• 0:32
  Megan Horneman: The U.S.
• 0:32
  Megan Horneman: economy actually added 119,000 jobs in September, and that was better than the 51,000 that was expected.
• 0:40
  Megan Horneman: In fact, it was the most monthly job additions since April of this year.
• 0:44
  Megan Horneman: The unemployment rate did tick up, though, slightly to 4.4%, and that's the highest since October of 2021.
• 0:52
  Megan Horneman: So a mixed picture there a little bit when you look at the rate compared to the payroll additions.
• 0:57
  Megan Horneman: The average hourly earnings, although they were unchanged at 3.8% on a year-over-year basis.
• 1:04
  Megan Horneman: And let's dig into some of the job additions where they were concentrated and then where there was some weakness.
• 1:10
  Megan Horneman: So we did see that there was a decline in professional business services.
• 1:14
  Megan Horneman: Temporary help, we've talked about that in the past, that can be a leading indicator for the future conditions of the labor market because you'll lay off temporary workers before full-time workers.
• 1:26
  Megan Horneman: When you look at manufacturing, trade, and then the federal government lost jobs for the month.
• 1:33
  Megan Horneman: But there was still big increases in when you look at health care, leisure, and hospitality.
• 1:39
  Megan Horneman: So the leisure and hospitality sector means that there still is consumer spending on that experience side of the economy.
• 1:48
  Megan Horneman: When we look at the participation rate, that actually rose to a four-month high.
• 1:54
  Megan Horneman: So we are losing some of those workers due to the crackdown on immigration.
• 1:58
  Megan Horneman: But the good news is what we did see was that participation rate rise specifically among women.
• 2:04
  Megan Horneman: So women are re-entering the workforce.
• 2:07
  Megan Horneman: Now, this is the last employment report that the Fed will get, but before their December FOMC meeting.
• 2:14
  Megan Horneman: And coming into this report, it was basically a little bit less than a 50% chance that they would cut interest rates.
• 2:20
  Megan Horneman: I think that still stays there.
• 2:22
  Megan Horneman: We think the Fed should actually pause at this meeting, assess the amount of economic data that's going to come in pretty rapidly as the government reopens.
• 2:33
  Megan Horneman: I think the Fed does have the ability just to step back, let's pause, let's assess what's going on with the labor market, but specifically let's start getting more information around the inflation side of the economy.
• 2:46
  Megan Horneman: We do have the tariff impact.
• 2:48
  Megan Horneman: Remember, tariff impacts in inflation do act on a lag, but we haven't really gotten any of the data to show specifically what it's doing to inflation because the government's been shut down for the month of October.
• 3:01
  Megan Horneman: Now the markets are doing fine today.
• 3:03
  Megan Horneman: This is primarily on the heels of the strong NVIDIA earnings that we got last night.
• 3:08
  Megan Horneman: So you are seeing some move back into that tech momentum trade again.
• 3:12
  Megan Horneman: But we'll be back again where there's gonna be a lot of economic data.
• 3:15
  Megan Horneman: Um, we'll be back next week with a with plenty more reports to give you.
• 3:19
  Megan Horneman: But if you like this podcast, please go to our history of them.
• 3:22
  Megan Horneman: And that's on marketswithmegan.fm.
• 3:25
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.