October 04, 2024 13:53 GMT
US DATA: Unemployment Status Flows Increasingly Encouraging After Weak July
US DATA
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- The status flows within the household survey echo the strong headline figures that saw the unemployment rate surprisingly fall from 4.22% to 4.05%.
- The outright shift from employed to unemployed (-215k) extended the improvement seen in Aug (-47k) after what had been a sharp 292k increase in July that drove the surprise lurch in the unemployment rate to 4.25%.
- The net flows continue to show upward pressure on the unemployment rate from the labor supply, adding 0.08pps vs heavy net flows from unemployed to employed lowering the u/e rate by 0.26pps.
- Taking a step back, net employed-unemployed flows have only pushed the u/e rate higher once in the past twelve months (in July, by 0.05pps) with no sign of broader job loss pressures.
- Net flows between those not in the labor force and unemployment (i.e. crude estimate of labor supply flows) increased from a +0.04pp to +0.08pp contribution in Sept but that’s lower than the +0.15pps averaged through 1H24. If maintained, that offers a reduced tailwind for future unemployment rate increases.
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