US Jobs Pickup May Keep Fed on Track to Hike Rates Again

Posted by frank_clover 16 hours ago

Comments

Comment by edelbitter 15 hours ago

Comment by noahbp 14 hours ago

And yet the average number of weeks spent unemployed is going up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UEMPMEAN

The unemployment rate today is divorced from the reality of how hard it actually is to get a job. Before 2009, †he average unemployed person spent less time unemployed before their next job at a 10% unemployment rate, than the average unemployed person today at 4.2% unemployment. https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-bridge-for-workers-act-ge...

Comment by bitshiftfaced 12 hours ago

One possibility is that the long right tail is pulling the average up as individuals in the left tail find new jobs and are removed from the average.

Comment by ndiddy 12 hours ago

If doing a gig app job full time doesn't count you as unemployed, I think that's a decent explanation for those numbers. Those jobs can be gotten by anyone with a car, but a job with a formal employment agreement and benefits is still difficult to get.

Comment by paulpauper 14 hours ago

Companies are sooo choosy for even the most mundane of jobs. You need 10 years experience and 2 degrees to wait tables.

Comment by red_candle_wax 8 hours ago

This is only going to get 10X worth with AI enabling domain expertise while devaluing general and technical knowledge

If you haven't found your niche yet, you'll be relegated to "warm body" roles.

Comment by RickJWagner 13 hours ago

Clearly, some people are getting hired. A good number of them.

Maybe it’s job sector rotation.

Comment by zahlman 14 hours ago

Interesting (pun intended) to me that apparently everyone wants to talk about the rate speculation, rather than about the finding that jobs are picking up in spite of AI.

Comment by ndiddy 14 hours ago

Most job growth for the past several years has been in the private education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and construction sectors. Removing these sectors makes job growth negative for 2024 and 2025, and wipes out the majority of job growth in 2026. See https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/economy/spotl... . These sectors are harder to automate with AI compared to white collar office jobs, which have seen major losses.

Comment by boshalfoshal 14 hours ago

These could be jobs that are just not as exposed to AI augmentation/automation?

I'm pretty strongly opinionated on AI eventually taking any job that derives value by using a computer, but its pretty obvious its strongest PMF right now is in the software industry. Headcount across high-tech companies are certainly flat/down. This is only a small portion of the overall job market though.

Comment by zahlman 14 hours ago

… Sorry, "PMF"?

Comment by kaffekaka 13 hours ago

Product Market Fit (of AI) is highest in software development.

Comment by eli_gottlieb 12 hours ago

No no, probability mass function, of course.

Comment by solyin 13 hours ago

Do you have access to Google?

Comment by andsoitis 14 hours ago

> everyone wants to talk about the rate speculation, rather than about the finding that jobs are picking up in spite of AI.

The Economist had an article early September "The jobs apocalypse is postponed. An AI jobs boom is here" - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/09/04/t...

Comment by ProAm 14 hours ago

> rather than about the finding that jobs are picking up in spite of AI.

We are years too early to determine if AI is removing jobs. AI still hasnt really decided what it wants to be yet. Were just in LLM land with bolt ons currently. Once we get hyperfocused models based on industry specific tasks that can run locally then we start to see the jobs fall.

Comment by paulpauper 14 hours ago

there are sooo many jobs AI cannot yet automate--things like service sector work, blue collar jobs, or individualized services. Many white-collar jobs involve coordination and dealing with edge cades. Things like insurance or advertising require having to meet clients' unique needs or have to deal with counterparties, like with law. An insurance company does not pay out--you are not going to resolve this with AI.

Comment by readthenotes1 13 hours ago

The initial report is not worth responding to since the error rate is so high, +/- 122,000.

What you're reading in this Bloomberg report is an expectation of an employment gain of -57,000 to +187,000.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm

Comment by RickJWagner 13 hours ago

The US has had robust economic stats lately, too.

A rate hike seems like a strong possibility. The specter of higher inflation looms.

Comment by sbseitz 12 hours ago

On what planet has the US had robust economic stats ?

Comment by Supermancho 12 hours ago

Planet Trump.

Comment by Dunewalnut22 15 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by game_the0ry 16 hours ago

[flagged]

Comment by kibwen 15 hours ago

Years of ZIRP have conditioned people into believing that rates at 5% are "high", when the historical reality is that 5% is approximately the mean rate over the past 70 years. Volcker famously broke the back of inflation in the 80s by pushing the interest rate up past 20%. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

Comment by nperez19 15 hours ago

I think the reason people are so shocked is because the principal is already so high and unaffordable that any rate increase feels like a death of a thousand cuts. A rate increase from 2% to 5% when the principal is already $400k+ feels devastating in comparison to a rate of 20% but the principal being $60k

Comment by paxy 14 hours ago

The real estate market is effecively frozen right now because buyers can't afford houses at the current rates and sellers are still holding out hope that they will come back down to 3%.

Once reality sets in we will start to see prices slowly adjust.

Comment by cma256 14 hours ago

What this and the sibling comment ignore is home construction. Without construction (or without cost effective construction) home prices have zero incentive to fall. Home owners will trade homes between themselves at 'inflated' prices. If you can not produce a home cheaper than an extant, equivalently sized home then prices effectively have a floor.

National average construction cost per square foot is $160. $160 * 2000 square feet is $320,000 sans the land which we can assume is 25% the cost of the home constructed on it. So we've magically hit the $400k number.

The only way home prices 'decline' is with population decline, coercion, a recession, or significant regulatory, cultural, and financial shifts.

Comment by toomuchtodo 14 hours ago

> The only way home prices 'decline' is with population decline, coercion, a recession, or significant regulatory, cultural, and financial shifts.

~2 million people 55+ die every year in the US, and immigration has come to a halt. Not all of those folks will have owned a home, but the vast majority of them will have (first citation), and those homes will be sold. There will be no mass layoff recession due to structural demographics.

Could the US have encouraged more workers to go into the trades with better wages and unions to increase the rate at which the US built houses? Certainly, that was a policy path, and the path I would've chosen. Was impairing inbound immigration another path to destroy domestic housing demand to reduce competition for it when the choice was made to not use policy to increase unit delivery to increase supply (with rising interest rates causing existing home valuations to fall)? It appears so.

US Census: Annual Homeownership Rates for the United States by Age Group: 1982-2025 - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf

Population Decline Was Decades Away. Now It’s At America’s Door - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-01-31/popula... | https://archive.today/VVOUJ - January 31st, 2026

The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-30/trump-imm... | https://archive.today/LdA0d - January 30th, 2026

US Population Growth Slows Sharply Due to Less Immigration - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-27/us-popula... | https://archive.today/ePDmG - January 27th, 2026

Map Shows 21 States Where Deaths Now Outnumber Births - https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-21-states-where-deaths-no... - June 30th, 2025

US Population Set to Shrink by 2033 Without Immigration, CBO Says - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-27/us-popula... | https://archive.today/NdTvX - March 27th, 2025

Comment by paulddraper 14 hours ago

Sellers are holding out knowing they already have 3%.

Comment by toomuchtodo 13 hours ago

“Locked-in” Homeowners Nevertheless Pay Off Below-4% Mortgages: their Share Drops to Lowest since Q4 2020 - https://wolfstreet.com/2026/01/03/locked-in-homeowners-never... - January 3rd, 2026

- "The share of below-3% mortgages outstanding, by number of mortgages, declined to 20.0% of all mortgages outstanding in Q3, the smallest share since Q1 2021, and down from a share of 24.6% at the peak in Q1 2022 (red in the chart), according to data by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)."

The Great Housing Freeze: Half of Homeowners Have a Sub-4% Mortgage Rate—and Few Reasons To Move - https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/outstanding-mortgage-rat... - October 22nd, 2026

- "Data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency's National Mortgage Database analyzed by the Realtor.com® economic research team shows that millions of homeowners are locked in to lower rates, with almost half (49%) holding a fixed rate below 4%."

These low rate mortgages will drain from the system over time, as the vast majority of notes are not assumable and will have to be satisfied at transfer.

Comment by gscott 14 hours ago

It is causing the govt to print 1.25 trillion a year to pay for expiring Treasury bonds. It's a damned if you do and if you don't situation.

Comment by toomuchtodo 15 hours ago

Higher rates will bring prices down. Prices can only support what incomes can support at current cost of money, wages + mortgage [based on qualified mortgage underwriting guidelines] = prices. Asset prices are inversely correlated with interest rates. ~4M real estate transactions occur per year, sales will happen because of moves, death, divorce, etc. This sets the price direction momentum and comparables at these money costs.

Home Prices Are Starting to Fall in Some Pockets of the U.S. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50203248 - October 2026

Stubborn Sellers Are the Last Thing Propping Up Home Prices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50096330 - October 2026

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50203261

("Note the trend. Just as the Fed drains M2 with quantitative tightening, time is needed to drain inflated residential real estate equity, grounded in mortgage rates (priced off of treasuries) and what wages can support.") (me, 7 months ago)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47596362

Tangentially related to how private equity is in a very unfavorable position at current valuations and continues to extend and pretend as long as possible before having to mark to current valuations and attempt to refinance debt loads at current money costs.

A $300B 'Debt Wall' Is Looming over Private-Equity Backed Companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260526 - October 2026

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50262716

- “PE has a glut of 32,000 companies ($4T in equity) they can't sell and the average hold time is extended past 8 years.”

In hindsight, root cause analysis, it was not a good idea for the Fed to provide unlimited support to mortgage backed securities bonds during the pandemic. All of that money flowed from the bond market into unsustainable real estate equity valuations that are now readjusting to reality through time and transactions. Alas, we win or we learn.

Comment by SoftTalker 15 hours ago

Exactly, with houses or bonds, prices and rates are inversely correlated.

A big part of why home prices are too high is that money has been too cheap. Most home buyers shop on the basis of a monthly payment. Same with cars.

Comment by PorciiVorbesc 14 hours ago

>Higher rates will bring prices down.

We've had higher rates since 2022-2023 and prices did not come down*, they flatlined or even went up in the desirable areas.

*) in EU

Comment by toomuchtodo 14 hours ago

Humans are emotional and take time to internalize market changes and potential value loss ("loss aversion").

Wikipedia: loss aversion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

Housing Market Update: Sellers’ Asking Prices Fall For the First Time Since March - https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-asking-pri... - October 15th, 2026

- Home prices are losing momentum. The median U.S. home-sale price rose just 0.5% year over year, the slowest growth rate since March. The median asking price fell 0.3% year over year, its first decline since March. Some relief could be on the horizon for buyers.

- Mortgage rates are still a vital stat for homebuyers and sellers. The weekly average mortgage rate hit a 3-year high of 7.4% on October 8. Daily average rates have eased slightly in recent days, dipping to 7.45% on October 14 from 7.61% about a week earlier.

- The typical homebuyer’s monthly payment is $2,777, the highest level on record except the previous week. That’s due to high mortgage rates and still-increasing home prices.

- Homebuying demand remains near record low. Pending home sales ticked up 1.5% from a week earlier–perhaps thanks to rates easing ever-so-slightly–but were still near their lowest level in records dating back to 2021. That includes the end of 2023, when mortgage rates were nearing 8%. Pending sales declined year over year in all 50 of the most populous U.S. metro areas.

- Price drops are at a record high. As sellers come to terms with prices losing steam, more of them are dropping their prices: 22% of home sellers with active listings cut their asking price, up from 20.9% a year earlier and the highest level in our records. [My note: draw attention here]

Sellers who want to (or must) sell now will lower their prices. Sellers who don't will wait, and encounter lower price levels as mortgage rates continue to rise in step with the 10Y. As long as structural demographics ensure a strong labor market (which they will), interest rates will continue to rise both from the Fed raising short term rates and from a capital shortage pushing up longer rates. Forward debt price curve up is real estate price curve down, very simply.

https://www.ustreasuryyieldcurve.com/ (all consumer debt is priced off of US treasury rates, including mortgage debt)

https://www.apollo.com/wealth/insights-news/insights/daily-s...

https://blog.sentinel-team.org/p/special-report-rising-bond-...

Comment by 14 hours ago

Comment by JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago

> rates at 5% are "high"

A risk-free rate of 5% (and rising) means “yields of CCC-rated borrowers — the lowest rung of junk debt — have climbed rapidly to more than 21 per cent in Europe and 18 per cent in the US as prices have plummeted, up from about 16 per cent and 15 per cent at the beginning of the year” [1].

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/fdc9a85d-d2c4-465f-99ca-609d68b6d...

Comment by gscott 14 hours ago

Slowing the economy might make the government feel they are playing into the hands of the Chinese. I think its full steam ahead... extra steam for inflation.

Comment by darth_avocado 14 hours ago

> Years of ZIRP have conditioned people into believing that rates at 5% are "high", when the historical reality is that 5% is approximately the mean rate over the past 70 years

I don’t like this framing because since 1990, 5% is on the higher end of the interest rates. [1] That is the entire lifetime for an entire generation of people, Millennials and everyone after. We can’t point to the “golden old days” and pretend that once upon a time interest rates were high so, it’s okay and people need to “remember” things were different. The entire economy has restructured since 1990.

Also, the Volkner move in itself was a deviation from the norm, not the norm itself. Some parts of 70s and 80s was the only time we saw unusually high spikes, but before that 5% again was on the higher end. Are we saying the boomers in the 60s were also spoiled by low interest rates for decades?

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-c...

Comment by qwytw 13 hours ago

Well if 1-2% inflation is "normal" and the goal of most central banks then yes 5% is very high.

> that 5% is approximately the mean rate over the past 70 years.

Besides a few years in the 90s it was always either significantly higher or lower than that.

Comment by paulpauper 14 hours ago

weird how this flagged comment generated so much discussion. what he sad have have been very divisive or controversial but also thought provoking

Comment by trgn 15 hours ago

low rates are the default of a healthy confident economy. high rates are the default for a struggling economy.

Comment by cosmojg 15 hours ago

You've got it backwards. Over a standard business cycle, a healthy, growing economy is generally correlated with higher (or rising) interest rates, while a weak or contracting economy is correlated with lower (or falling) interest rates. Bond investors demand higher interest rates when they have more confidence in the economy as they would otherwise prefer to invest in equities, and investors settle for lower rates when they have less confidence in the economy as they seek to exit equities in favor of low-risk alternatives.

Comment by JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago

> Over a standard business cycle

The long-term, as in multi-century, trend has been for interest rates to fall as capital becomes more comfortable with trusting returns to come in over longer horizons.

Comment by IsTom 14 hours ago

Has there been interest rates for multiple centuries?

Comment by JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago

Yes, going back into antiquity. The English Crown borrowed around 14% in the 13th and 14th centuries [1]. The Roman grain markets had lending embedded, too, though nothing resembling a risk-free rate. (Monarchies borrowing had an element of coercion to them, so the rate one would lend freely to them was probably higher than the rate they contracted.)

What one can reasonably argue is that there hasn’t been a market-set risk-free rate since the Enlightenment, possibly since Bagehot and the invention of independent central banking. (Some people argue we still don’t have a risk-free rate today.)

[1] https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/16784/1/16784.pdf

Comment by christophilus 14 hours ago

Yes. It is covered in various books. Galbraith covered it in “Money…”[0] I’m not totally sure you can draw parallels to the old world, though. The modern economy seems so different, but basically, rates seem to follow the course of a civilization. IIRC, Low when things are stable, higher at the edges as things destabilize. It’s been a few years since I read the book, though, and I may be misremembering things.

[0] https://ia800605.us.archive.org/14/items/TheWorldIsFlat/Mone...

Comment by trgn 11 hours ago

dutch republic had famously low interest rates for a long time. rest of the world had erratically high interest rates. low interest rates are signs of stability, and long term trust and confidence.

a prolonged high interest rate is a sign of something structurally wrong.

Comment by mym1990 15 hours ago

It really depends, and its hard to saw what "low" vs "high" rates means. Within different economies, low could be 0, 5, or 10. Depending on where you are in the business cycle, high rates could actually signal a hot economy and low rates could mean a cold one(or trying to jump start borrowing). Low rates all the time and high rates all the time probably isn't good, its a dance.

Comment by jmyeet 14 hours ago

I hear this point a lot and it's asinine.

Yes we have much higher interest rates in the 1980s and 1990s but house prices as a function of wages have doubled in that time [1]. Here's another view: mortgage debt service as a ratio to personal income [2].

Whichever way you look at it, the current situation is significantly worse and significantly more expensive in real terms so 10%+ interest rates of the past were actually better in real terms.

The real problem is that housing is too expensive. And that's because it's become an investment, people's retirement funds. It should be absolutely impossible for people to hoard housing.

[1]: https://www.longtermtrends.com/home-price-median-annual-inco...

[2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=fXwf

Comment by IsTom 14 hours ago

Low interest rates cause higher house prices, because people can then afford monthly payments for bigger principals and they're all still bidding/buying from more or less the same pool of housing.

Comment by AnimalMuppet 13 hours ago

Exactly this. For housing, the demand curve is set by the monthly payment, not by the total price.