10 04 24 CSU Economics Professor Stephan Weiler talks about today's jobs report

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Experts underestimating the nation's jobs numbers by over one hundred
thousand new jobs according to the latest Bureau of Labor
and Statistics reports, which shows two hundred and fifty.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Four thousand jobs were added in September, the unemployment rate
taking down to four point one percent. It represents a
turnaround from jobs numbers that played a role in triggering
rate cuts from the Fed last month. And on with
us now in the KO Commentspirit Health Hotline to share
their perspective. It's Colorado State University Economics Professor Stephan Wiler, Professor,
Welcome back to Colorado's morning News. Our business and money

(00:30):
editor Pat Woodard is with us as well. More jobs
always seems like a good thing. You what is your
takeaway from this latest data?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
They are jumping for joy at the FED. You can
say that for sure, and it's just a great number
for Americans in general. Two hundred and fifty four thousand jobs,
as you say, exceeded all expectations. They also revised July
and August upward by seventy two thousand jobs. So the

(01:02):
employment growth was broad across food and drink, health, government, construction,
and broad. Broad based growth is the best so it
what it We can talk about how what it might
do for the FED. But in any cases is I
think this is good news for Americans.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Well, let's do talk about what it means for the FED.
How does this factor into the Federal reserve interest rate
cutting strategy? If it factors in at all?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
It does. And the interesting thing is, because of two
unfortunate incidents, the long Shortman strike that's that's going on
right now in the hurricane, it's going to be hard
to dissect the October numbers is quite as clearly, and
the FED is going to meet at the beginning of November.
So this is probably the last report that they're really

(01:49):
going to look at closely. And I think that basically
what this does is it says the economy is doing well.
The soft landing is it seems right on schedule. And
so also I don't think that that the FED will
feel at all a hurry to decrease interest rates. Doctor
Sherman Powell talked about it was unlikely to have a

(02:13):
another fifty point basis point or point five percent decrease
in the federal funds rate. I think this is going
to back him up. The Probably we're probably looking at
two small twenty five basis point. Interest rates increases in
November and December.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Professor Reiler, you talked about the long Shorreman's strike and
how that could really just cause all the numbers going
forward to just be on a spiral or really on
clarity of what they could look like. Specifically, do we
have any expectations of how those could look going forward,
because well, it was only a couple of days.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
It was a couple of days of complete gridlock.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Complete gridlock. Absolutely no, It's it's significant and can ripple
through the economy very much like the supply chain problem
after the pandemic. It's going to be really hard to
to know. And that's part of the reason that this
this report which is untainted by the strike as well
as the hurricane, which you know, which damaged and killed

(03:09):
a lot of folks in the on the East coast
and the Gulf. So this, this report, I think is
actually more important than than it ever is. It's also
a report that sort of underlines the fact that there
are sort of still sort of two economies. One that

(03:29):
for most folks it's going pretty well. Short term unemployment
rate that less than five weeks went down three hundred
and twenty two thousand people, but long term unemployment rates
went up by three by three hundred thousand over the
course of the last year. Discouraged workers, people who have

(03:52):
been trying to find a job but couldn't have stopped looking,
increased by twenty one percent. So what you've got here,
I think, and this is something we we may want
to talk about over time too, is that there are
folks that are doing that are doing fine, but there
is there is a strata of of the population that
is that is struggling, that that that are having a

(04:16):
hard time finding a job. And so I think that's
that that that undercurrent it needs to be acknowledged.

Speaker 5 (04:23):
I wanted to ask about the piece at least with
that strike from your vantage point. One of the other
sticky issues that they haven't addressed is automation when it
comes to this, is that something that that they should
be worried about. Is this something that we need to
worry about the automation piece, or doesn't that make things
more efficient and maybe less costly.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
It's I think you're gonna you're going to get disagreement
amongst folks, but I tend to take your your your second.
Your second scenario that that it actually does make things
more efficient and that you can it actually raises wages
for workers, and that was also another good news in
this report. Their wages are a four percent year over year,

(05:05):
which is a great number when you compare it to
the inflation rate which only went up two point five percent.
So there's some real growth there. But the automation will
lead to some unemployment. AI. We're all thinking about artificial intelligence.
That will probably have a factor too in terms of
the supply chain. But in general for the economy over

(05:28):
overall jobs, the automation piece is something that is actually
good and is likely to create actually new jobs in
different and new in different areas.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Financial markets generally seem to root for more interest rate cuts,
and the jobs report could mean fewer of them. As
we've talked about, markets are up today, So does the
overall health of the economy outweigh that wish for more
rate cuts.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
I think that's a really good observation, Pat, Yeah, I
think they that people were I mean, a quarter million
new jobs is a big deal, and I think they
are rooting for bigger interest rate cuts, but they know
some right rate cuts are coming, and so they I
think they're going to probably end up being satisfied by that,
and that's probably reflect what's reflected in the market this morning.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Sees you economics professor at Stephan Weiler. Professor Wiler, thanks
for your insight.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
As always, it's a pleasure.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Thank you.