Holy Mackerel — 3.9% Unemployment — Hiring Blows Past Expectations — February, 2024

Locator: 46702JOBS.

Personal investing:

• will buy more AAPL today; no recommendation; see disclaimer.
  

New jobs: 275,000 vs 198,000.

CNBC comments:

• Liesman: blah blah blah — nothing remarkable -- not much inflationary pressure

Others:

• a win for the bulls for a soft landing
• very much a soft landing report; wage growth declined; Fed needs to cut May or June
• seems to confirm JPow's path to a soft landing
• June cut more likely than May cut; one more month of data needed to confirm this most recent data
• one analyst no longer pays attention to "jobs" -- 
• says immigration surge has completely distorted this metric
• instead of jobs, follows the ratio -- the unemployment rate; in this case, 3.9%
• surprisingly no one really talked about why unemployment rate went up -- I assume because it simply suggests the Fed's tightening is working 
• another analyst: also agrees that "this is a pretty good report"; wage report again, nice to see;
  

Cramer:

• again, like me, surprised how far the estimate was off
• the report as far as the market goes: both Cramer and Farber -- PERFECT -- a PERFECT report
• used the word "Goldilocks" but quickly pivoted to PERFECT
• says JPow isn't talking about a "soft landing."
• JPow is talking about the best economy the best county in the world can provide -- JPow is not talking about "soft landing"

Market: liked the report.

Part time jobs: that was the big story — directly related to minimum wage

• small companies can't afford to hire full-time due to minimum wage
• could explain part time jobs

BLS: link here.