Option Millionaires

[uranium-pinto-beans]

The U.S. jobs report revealed small but widespread undershoots across payrolls, hours-worked, wages, and the household data. Analysts saw a restrained 175k April payroll gain after -22k in revisions and an expected down-tick in the workweek back to 34.3 that allowed a -0.1% hours-worked decline. The goods sector posted a lean 14k jobs gain with a -0.4% hours-worked drop. Hourly earnings rose by just 0.2% to leave a drop in the y/y gain to a 3-year low of 3.9% from a prior low of 4.1% in March. Civilian employment rose by just 25k alongside an 87k labor force increase to allow a jobless rate rise to 3.86% from 3.83%, and the labor force participation rate sustained the March rise to 62.7% after three months at 62.5%, leaving the rate just below the 3-year high of 62.8% last seen in November. Payrolls are 4.4% above their level in Q4 of 2019, while hours-worked are 4.8% above that pre-pandemic level. The rise for real GDP from Q4 of 2019 to Q1 sits at 8.7%. Hours-worked have slightly outpaced payrolls since Q4 of 2019 due to a longer workweek, while real GDP has sharply outpaced both metrics due to the pandemic productivity climb, though both of shifts have been trimmed since 2021.