April 8, 2023 | Jobs Report, Labor Market and Mutual Fund Managers

<p>Jobs Report Given the concerns around the economy, I'd say the jobs report was a positive one. It wasn't too hot which would've provided evidence for the Fed to increase rates more than anticipated, but it also wasn't too far below expectations and overall, it showed a softening labor market not a bad labor market. Headline payrolls grew by 236,000 compared to the estimate of 238,000, but the big highlight came from the average hourly earnings which increased just 4.2% on an annual basis and was the smallest increase since June 2021. For most of 2022 the annual gains were over 5% with March being the peak at 5.9%. This is more evidence that inflation is becoming a much smaller problem. Also, another highlight was the labor force participation rate again ticked higher to 62.6% which was the highest level since pre-covid levels. For comparison, in February 2020 the labor force participation rate was 63.3%. Areas that led the way in job gains were leisure & hospitality at 72,000, healthcare and social assistance at 50,800, and the Government at 47,000. Leisure & hospitality still remains 2.2% or 368,000 jobs below pre-covid levels and Government employment is still lower by 314,000 jobs, or 1.4 percent. There were 4 declining groups in the report as retail trade was down 14,600, construction was down 9,000, and manufacturing and financial activities were both down 1,000 jobs.</p> <p> </p> <p>Labor Market The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that job openings in February came in at 9.93 million. This was a fall of 632,000 job openings when compared to the month of January and it missed the estimate of 10.4 million openings. This was the first time since May 2021 that job openings fell below 10 million and while this may sound concerning, there are still about 1.7 jobs available for every available worker. Also, if we look back to January 2016-February 2020, the job openings ranged from 5.59 million - 7.59 million. Layoffs were also positive as they declined 215,000 from January to a level of 1.5 milli