EMISSIONS: EU End-Of-Day Carbon Summary: EUAs Rise, UKAs Fall

The BLS has confirmed that December's employment and CPI report release dates are unchanged:

• December employment to be released Friday January 9
• December CPI to be released Tuesday, January 13

• +20,000 SFRF6 96.37 puts 1.5-1.75 over 96.50/96.75 call spds ref 96.41
• Update pit/screen: -58,000 SFRF6 96.56/96.68 call spds, 1.0 ref 96.405 to -.41 offered
• -8,000 SFRZ5 96.18/96.25/96.372x3x1 broken call flys, 7.5 vs. 96.2675/0.21%

The quits rate fell further in October to its lowest since 2014 when excluding two pandemic months of 2020 and the hires rate broadly confirmed August’s decline to lows since 2021.

• The quits rate was reported at 1.8%, down from 1.96 in September and 1.94 in August.
• We have taken this October quits rate from the 1.d.p value reported by the BLS rather than our usual unrounded calculations which use the usually already known level of payrolled employment in the month.
• Of course, we will only officially know the October level of payrolls with the delayed November report on Dec 16. It’s unclear whether the BLS has used what it currently estimates to have been payrolls employment in October or whether it just references September instead (the latter would yield a 1.84 quit rate so it would just hold).
• Those details aside, this 1.8% quit rate is its lowest since 2014 outside of Apr and May 2020 pandemic months, clearly pointing to greater caution in the labor market. It steps below a range of 1.9-2.1% seen since mid-2024.
• The hires rate meanwhile broadly confirmed a shift to new recent lows, reported at 3.2% in October (it would be 3.23 assuming zero payrolls growth since September) for close to the 3.21 in August that had been its lowest since Sep 2021 when excluding the pandemic-hit Apr 2020. This briefly increased to 3.36% in September.
• Finally, layoffs increased further to 1854k in October and 1781k in September after the 1725k in August to hit the highest since early 2023. It paints a weaker picture than that painted by higher frequency weekly jobless claims data although is a less severe increase than the surge in layoff announcements from back in the October Challenger report.
• Historical context gives a mixed read for these JOLTS layoffs. The 1854k in October has only just pushed back above the 1818k averaged in 2019, a period when the labor market was historically tight, yet layoffs were reported a similar levels for many years before that when the labor market wasn't as robust.