Investors sifted through mixed signals in the U.S. June employment report Friday, with sticky wage gains seen offsetting any relief from a slowdown in jobs growth.
So a good but weaker-than-expected, rise of 209,000 nonfarm payrolls in June was viewed by investors as a welcome development, but was blunted by a downtick in the unemployment rate to 3.6% from 3.7% and a higher-than-expected 0.4% monthly rise in average hourly earnings. That left wages up by 4.4% year over year. They were growing around 3% before the pandemic.
Given that wages are a driver of core service sector inflation, the Fed will likely be disappointed that this report did not provide some additional relief on this measure, said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy and research at Glenmede, in a note.Stocks were putting in a mixed performance at midday Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA off around 30 points, or 0.1%, while the large-cap benchmark S&P 500 SPX rose 0.1%. Yields on U.S.