What’s Going On Here?Data out on Friday showed that the US economy added more jobs than expected last month, but there are signs the searing hot market might be cooling down. What Does This Mean?The US counted 315,000 new starters in August, just ahead of the 300,000-odd economists expected. Still, that’s a far cry from July’s 526,000 uptick and marks the lowest monthly gain since April 2021 (tweet this). At the same time, there was a bump in the number of folk looking for work, likely because higher prices pushed them to search for extra income. That matters: it brought the “labor force participation rate” – the share of people either in work or looking for it – up to 62.4%, its highest since March 2020. That higher supply of workers meant employers didn't need to bump wages up quite so much in a bid to bag scarce talent, which might be why wage growth came in at a lower-than-expected 5.2% from the same time last year. Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: Hit the brakes..?
The data will have been welcome news for the Federal Reserve (the Fed): after all, lower-than-expected wage growth should help take some of the wind out of inflation’s sails, and the jobs market healthily ticking along won’t hurt either. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: that’s just one month, and data out last week showed there are still roughly two vacancies for each unemployed worker. So it's probably not time for the Fed to take its foot off the gas: most traders are betting it’ll still hike interest rates by 0.75% this month.
For markets: The June blues.
Investors initially sent the US stock market up after the data was released but it didn’t help much: it’s still on track to notch its third negative week in a row. And there could still be more pain to come: September is historically a bad month for the market, and some traders are even worried that stocks might revisit their June lows. | 
