"When is the next jobs report" isn't usually a burning question when the economy is expanding and the unemployment rate is down to levels last seen more than 50 years ago.
But in the upside-down world of the post-pandemic recovery, bad news on the jobs front is good news for stocks.
Remember that market participants are desperate for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates. (That's because lower rates equal higher future returns for stocks.) The fact that the short-term federal funds rate, set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), is currently at a 23-year high is hardly ideal for equities over the longer haul.
And yet the remarkably robust labor market – and the rising wages that come with it – is making the Fed wary about rushing into rate cuts. Cut too soon, with a healthy economy and labor market as the backdrop, and inflation could accelerate again, the thinking goes.
Rather, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the rest of the FOMC are trying to engineer what's known as a soft landing. That's where the central bank gets inflation back down to its long-term target of 2% without sparking a recession that throws millions of folks out of work.
And so if inflation is a case of too many dollars chasing too few goods, a tight labor market and rising wages are the last thing the Fed wants to see. That's why any time we get a better-than-expected non-farm payrolls report, it hasn't been the best news for equities. Plentiful jobs and rising wages typically help fuel inflation, at least when it's demand driven. (That the current period of global inflation appears to have been a supply-side issue is a discussion for another time.)
Bottom line: The Fed probably wants evidence of cooling wage pressures, among other items, before it begins easing. That's why the market has become so hinky about the jobs report even though we're not in recession.
When is the next jobs report?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the Department of Labor, releases the Employment Situation Summary – also known as the employment report, jobs report or nonfarm payrolls report – at 8:30 am Eastern on the first Friday of every month.
The jobs report consists of separate surveys of households and employers estimating the number of people on payrolls, average number of weekly hours worked, average hourly earnings, labor force participation, unemployment rates and other data.
To get a sense of what the BLS is up to, here's an example of some of its methodology: "Each month the program surveys about 119,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 629,000 individual worksites, in order to provide detailed industry data on employment, hours, and earnings of workers on nonfarm payrolls. The active sample includes approximately one-third of all nonfarm payroll jobs."
The jobs report gives us a comprehensive look at the labor market, which is ultimately what fuels consumer spending. Recall that consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity, and you can see why the jobs report has always been front and center.
For those wondering "when is the next jobs report?," have a look at the schedule, courtesy of the BLS, below.
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Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.
A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.
Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.
In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.
Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.
Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.
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