MNI BRIEF: Fed’s Goolsbee-Hard To Interpret Weaker Job Numbers

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee said Thursday downward revisions to payroll employment are hard to interpret because they are happening at the same time as immigration restrictions, and he will take the upcoming August payroll figures with a grain or salt, focusing more closely instead on the jobless rate. 

“I'm one of the data dogs, so you're never going to hear me say, throw away a number and pay no attention to it, but I'm just going to index on that number tomorrow morning a little bit less than we normally would, because what we found in ‘23 and ‘24 is [unemployment] rates were a little more indicative of the business cycle than the raw jobs number,” Goolsbee said in a fireside chat at mHUB’s Industry Disruptor Series in Chicago, Illinois. 

He said the “Four Horsemen of Truth” are the hiring rate, the vacancy rate, the layoff rate, and the unemployment rate.  

“One of those four looks pretty weak, that is the hiring rate. Two of the four are totally stable, and one of the four, if you look at layoffs, the layoff rate is extremely low. It's lower than it was in 2019 for example, which was a strong labor market. So, we got some cross currents that I'll be looking for tomorrow.” (See MNI POLICY: Fed Takes Measured Approach To Post-September Cuts)