00:00 Speaker A
172,000 is the lowest monthly ad for the third month in a row. For the third month in a row, the number actually exceeded 170,000.
00:06 Speaker B
Yeah.
00:07 Speaker A
It is good to have a good tendency. And the unemployment rate remains at 4.3%. That’s a good trend. I guess that’s why I ended up writing about it for Substack this week. Once you have a few months of data, it’s usually time to just sit back and say, “Honestly, this looks good.” Like, we need to start understanding that the labor market actually hit a kind of bottom in November, maybe December of 2025, and started to recover from there. So April’s job data was a little weird, and weirder. There was one big addition in just one area, and I think that led to the beat in that area, but the job openings were the highest they’ve been in two years. So at some point, I’m sorry, but AI isn’t going to immediately take away everyone’s jobs. That is not what is actually happening here, and the labor market is not slowing down significantly.
00:51 Speaker B
Well, not really, but the jobs that get added on balance aren’t the jobs that will be challenged by AI, right?
00:58 Speaker B
Like those two, the two biggest areas were bars and restaurants, but obviously we’re not, we don’t have robot bartenders yet. And in healthcare, healthcare is continually advancing. There were also many additional teachers. Well, you know, this problem hasn’t been challenged again by AI. For example, we did not see any gains in information services or some of its areas. Yes, the entire job market is not being destroyed by AI, but I don’t think you can say the same thing about how AI will impact society. It’s a question without an answer.
01:43 Speaker A
yes.
01:43 Speaker B
job market.
01:44 Speaker A
yes.
01:45 Speaker B
It’s unstable. I don’t know yet.
01:46 Speaker A
Well, III I think the current labor market data tells us two important things. One is, just from a stock market perspective, you can look at that data and feel good about being in the stock market. If that means, okay, there are jobs and economic growth is good, so the probability of a Fed rate hike will go up a little bit and bond yields will go a little higher, I’m fine with that. I accept that. That’s fine. I think another effect is that we have begun to eliminate the argument as to why we need to lower interest rates. I think we need to see the unemployment rate rise from here. Employment growth is expected to slow. We were talking two months ago, three months ago, about a break-even salary rate, probably 15,000. As long as the U.S. economy adds 15,000 jobs each month, we’ll be fine. Yeah. Well, it adds 170,000. So we’re way above that. If you’re a Fed official right now, I don’t think you can sit there and seriously argue that you’re concerned about the labor market and that’s the reason for the cuts.
02:44 Speaker B
right.
02:44 Speaker A
And we should be looking more at the inflation side of things at this point, because the inflation story has obviously gotten very bad.
02:51 Speaker B
Yes, that’s right.
