• SP&500 closed up +33 points or +0.8%, the DOW was up +48 points or +0.1%, and the NASDAQ +340 or +2.8 for the week ending Aug 5th.  Oil dropped -$9.9 or -10.1% to $88.53 per barrel. 
• The July job report came out much better than expected.  In July a total of 528K jobs were added.  It appears that businesses continue to see value in hiring to support their business growth.  However, this high job growth is counter to what the Federal Reserve is trying to do is to slow down the economy, and therefore slow down the job growth.  The July job report is bound to give the Federal Reserve reason to perhaps increase the interest rates more aggressively.

July adds +528,000 jobs – Now the U.S. has recovered all jobs lost in the Covid pandemic!

The U.S. Labor Department reported that in July +528,000 jobs were added.  This was the 19th straight monthly gain!  Unemployment rate for July fell to 3.5% (was 3.6% in June), the lowest since the pandemic started in 2019. Hourly wages rose +5.1% (was +5.2% in May) at the annual rate. The labor participation rate slipped to 62.1% (was 62.2% in June), but below the pandemic level of 63.4%.  The U.S. has now recovered all of the 22 million jobs lost due to Covid pandemic.

Source – New York times.

• Since Feb-2020 pre-Covid job shortfall is still 0.5 million jobs. Pandemic related job loss was 22 million.  In 2021 the U.S. economy added 6.4 million jobs. 2020 was a massive job loss year.  See above. In comparison to 2019 where the US added +2.1 million, 2018 added +2.7 million, and 2017 added +2.06 million jobs.
• Labor participation rate dropped to 62.1% from 62.2% in June. Pre-covid this number was 63.4%. Labor participation rate for women rose above 57%. The participation is a percentage of 16-64 years olds that are working or seeking employment.  Non-working Americans include the retired, stay home with kids, disabled, Seniors, College students AND those trying to find a job but have given up.
• Typically 300,000 new jobs a month are needed to drop the unemployment rate, and 150,000 jobs to just keep up with the population growth.
• During the last recession, due to a bad banking loan crisis, close to 8.7 million jobs were lost which were recovered but now with Covid-19 more jobs have been lost!

Sources: Multiple, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Yahoo, Google, NY Times, BLS, US Government, CIA handbook,…Select other sources