-
US unemployment rate drops for all the wrong reasons
North American employment reports came, we saw and they have been trying to conquer the risk trade ever since. It certainly was a mixed bag of data to end ‘this’ of all weeks on. Canada did a U-turn, and provided us with as many job losses (-18.7k) as positives (+18.6k) the market had been expecting. Unlike its southern neighbor, the unemployment rate inched higher (+7.4%). In contrast, the US hit headline expectations (+120K) and gave us some strong positive revisions. The unemployment rate firmly beat everyones expectations (+8.6%), however, the labor force participation rate eased to a 28-year low (+64%) as ... (full story)