This morning’s Empire State Index showed the cost of manufacturing goods on the East Coast have dropped, pushing sentiment of those polled up over 300% for the month. This is great news for inflation and good news for the greater health of our economy.
In the labor market, we should see the BLS Jobs Report for September being published this Thursday. That will be the first of the three catchup jobs reports over the next two weeks. Other ancillary labor research has shown a softness in the job market and the BLS is forecast to show only 50,000 new jobs created each month, while the unemployment rate should remain at 4.3%. 50,000 new jobs is extremely low and that would be fine if people were keeping their jobs long-term. Unfortunately, Challenger just reported today that layoffs are up to 150,000 per month which which is 3X new hires and is the highest calculation in the last 15 years.
