Economic security

Only Thing That Will Blow Up Job Market Now Is The Fed

...Nonfarm payrolls closed 2018 with a bang in December. Companies added 312,000 new jobs, beating market consensus estimates. Unemployment is at 3.9%, near historic lows. Wage growth remained strong, with an above-consensus 0.4% monthly rise that lifted the annualized wage increase to 3.2%.

Some 85% of Americans work in the private sector, with only around 2% working for the Federal Government. Another 15% are employed by state and local governments, according to the latest data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

This means the government shutdown has a marginal impact on the overall economy and is merely a sentiment driver as it has Main Street and Wall Street focused on political crises.

According to the BLS, Americans are not overworked. Average weekly working hours for the month of December were 34.4 hours.

Fed chairman Jerome Powell said he was pleased by the labor and said wage increases were not yet leading to higher inflation. Powell has taken it on the chin of late, seen working at cross-purposes to the growth agenda of the man who appointed him, President Donald Trump. He said that he would not resign if Trump asked him to do so.