00:00 Julie Hyman
Well, stocks rising on a stronger-than-expected June jobs report with the S&P 500 hitting a fresh intraday record. Yahoo Finance Fed correspondent Jennifer Schonberger has the breakdown. Hi again, Jen.
00:14 Jennifer Schonberger
Hey Julie, good morning to you again. Yes, a much stronger-than-expected jobs report. Non-farm payroll numbers clocking in at 147,000, much stronger than the 106,000 expected. The unemployment rate ticking down to 4.1% versus expectations to tick up to 4.3%, it had sat at 4.2% for the prior two months. Average hourly earnings coming in a bit at 3.7% versus what we had seen 38, 39 for the past couple of months, but still holding strong. But if we look under the hood of this report, most of the job gains were being driven by state and local governments as opposed to the private sector. And businesses have been saying that they’re in a holding pattern right now when it comes to hiring plans because of uncertainty surrounding effective tariff rates and immigration. I asked Labor Secretary Laurie Chavez DeRemer moments ago whether this uncertainty is weighing on businesses, and if we could see, have seen stronger job growth if not for that uncertainty.
02:06 Laurie Chavez DeRemer
Always uncertainty causes a pause. But the president has done a wonderful job in these tariff talks, in this time of growing the America’s economy. It’s going to take some time, but he has leaned in on his executive orders. I mean, one of the directions by all of the agencies is to lean in on the workforce. So, Department of Labor, I get to do that. One million active apprentices, that’s going to solve, um, the growth in that manufacturing sector. But we saw construction tick up, we saw health care tick up, we’ve seen many of the jobs. I mean, I still think plus 70,000 in private sector, that’s going to continue to grow as well.
03:08 Jennifer Schonberger
All of this as President Trump turned up the heat on Fed Chair Jay Powell and the rest of the FOMC Wednesday night, calling on Powell to resign immediately. And this jobs report is unlikely to help the situation, likely to take any chances for a July rate cut later this month off the table. So we could probably see a bit more pressure, continued pressure, I should say, from the president on the Federal Reserve as they have said clearly that so long as the job market remains strong, the economy remains strong, they can take the time to wait and see what the impact of the president’s tariffs are going to be on inflation, Julie.
04:07 Julie Hyman
Jennifer, thank you.