September 8

9/8 – Friday’s monthly jobs report was abysmal. U.S. employers added just 22,000 net new jobs in August. Additionally, June figures were (again) revised lower to a negative 13,000. The employment economy had been in cruise control, adding 168,000 net new jobs per month in 2024 and 123,000 per month for the first 4 months of 2025. Then we hit a wall in May. For the past 4 months (May-Aug) we’ve managed just 27,000 new jobs per month. Fortunately, the unemployment rate has only risen from 4.1% to 4.3%. Unfortunately, that’s mostly because 1.41M foreign born workers have left their jobs since March – and a portion of the jobs were filled by native born workers. But the underlying concern is that employers are sitting on their hands, awaiting the tariff and deportation dust to settle, while being hurt by declines in consumer confidence and consumer spending. The economy has taken on a pre-recession mentality.