Saturday, 8 March 2025

US labor market softens gently, storms passing

Passing storms

The US economy added +151,000 jobs in January, a bit lower than expected, but solid enough.

The unemployment rate held fairly steady, at 4.1 per cent.


Measures of underemployment are rising, however, with the underemployment rate rising from 7½ per cent 8 per cent over the month. 


Source: Bloomberg

Auto delinquencies are at 30-year highs, and there are other some tentative signs of an economy fraying a little at the edges. 

Bond yields have eased quite significantly over recent months. 


And the crude oil price touched a 3-year low this week, taking away some of the inflationary risks. 

Back home in Australia, Cyclone Alfred has been downgraded to a storm.

We barely got a ripple up here, all things considered - except for major beach scarping - but potentially there will be some significant outages and damage impacting further south at the Gold Coast. 

Hopefully situation back all back to normal fairly soon.