The Challenger Job Cuts Report that was published this morning shows there were 153,000 corporate layoffs in October, which is the highest level for this month in 22 years. Over the last 10 months over 1 million people have lost their jobs which is the highest 10 month period since 2009. The total number of unemployed people in the United States is currently 7.4 million or approximately 4.4% of the working population. Challenger says that the increase in artificial intelligence and robotics is the cause of the downturn in the labor market.
Though we won’t see an official Unemployment Report tomorrow from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Chicago Fed Labor Market published their calculations at a round 4.4% and indicated that there’s a 40% chance that it could be higher. That’s 1/10% over the last published official BLS Unemployment number.
Technically, MBS are sandwiched between the 25 and 50 day moving averages, which don’t give them a lot of wiggle room. The 10 year treasury Bond is still above above 4% at 4.0851%.
