Jobs
The employment read — what's under the headline payroll number.
July went negative: payrolls −23,000 (government −53K; private +30K) with unemployment falling to 4.1% only because 264,000 people left the labor force. Wages at +3.2% are the slowest since May 2021 — a smaller, softening labor market, not a cracking one. September hike odds roughly halved on the report.
- August 7, 2026 Payrolls Fell 23,000; Unemployment Fell Only Because 264,000 People Left the Labor Force Jobs
July payrolls fell 23,000 against a consensus near +83,000 — the first negative month since 2020, per press readings of the series, with 103,000 more jobs revised away from May and June. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% anyway, because 264,000 people left the labor force. The series disagree on the surface and reconcile through participation — a smaller, softening labor market. Investors priced the dovish side: September hike odds fell from about 67% earlier in the week to near 40%.
- August 4, 2026 Openings Per Unemployed Worker Hit a 17-Month High Because the Labor Force Shrank JOLTS
June JOLTS — job openings were little changed at 7.36 million, yet openings per unemployed worker rose to 1.04, the highest since January 2025. The gauge rose because the unemployed count fell 213,000 in a month when household employment fell 507,000 and 720,000 people left the labor force — slack is falling because people are leaving the labor force, not because they're finding jobs. Quits spent a twelfth straight month at or below 2.0% and layoffs held at 1.1%: still low-hire, low-fire.
- June 30, 2026 Nobody's Quitting or Getting Fired JOLTS
May JOLTS — job openings held at 7.59M, above the 7.28M consensus, and layoffs stayed low. The labor-market break that would justify a rate cut still isn't here. Underneath, nothing is moving — quits sit below their pre-pandemic norm and the vacancy-to-unemployed ratio is back near one. The Beveridge curve shows a market that normalized without a recession.
- June 5, 2026 Behind May's Jobs Beat, a Labor Market at Stall Speed Jobs
May's headline jobs beat masked a labor market at stall speed: full-time work and the private, cyclical core are both shrinking.