Powell can't tame the American labour market

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Thursday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>And today we lead with news the strength of global labour markets is still on display, especially in the US.</p><p>But first, despite <a href="https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms" target="_blank"><strong>mortgage interest rates back rising</strong></a> again, last week <a href="https://www.mba.org/news-and-research/newsroom/news/2023/03/08/mortgage-applications-increase-in-latest-mba-weekly-survey" target="_blank"><strong>mortgage applications rose</strong></a> as well and that breaks a three week retreat.</p><p>For all the talk about how Americans are supposedly loading up on more credit card debt, <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/default.htm" target="_blank"><strong>the latest data</strong></a> on overall consumer debt (January) shows it rose a very modest +US$15 bln and far less than was anticipated.</p><p>But the key overnight news has been the release of more data that points to a 'hot' labour market, not fading yet.</p><p>We get the US non-farm payrolls report for February this weekend (NZT) and it is expected to reveal their employment rose +205,000 on top of the prior month's +517,000 unexpectedly good gain. Today, the private <a href="https://adp-ri-nrip-static.adp.com/artifacts/us_ner/20230308/ADP_NATIONAL_EMPLOYMENT_REPORT_Press_Release_2023_02%20FINAL.pdf?_ga=2.116065093.2147344125.1678296253-88946142.1678296253" target="_blank"><strong>ADP pre-cursor report</strong></a> was also strong for February, showing a gain of +242,000 and well above the expected +200,000. That has changed the risks for the non-farm movement to the high side. There is some evidence that the continued expansion is due to many more women returning to their workforce.</p><p>Data for their <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm" target="_blank"><strong>January JOLTS repo