The U.S. Labor Market Cooling Is Broad & Expanding

Can a soft landings continue indefinitely?

If I were to piggy-back off of “The Employment Picture,” it is safe to safe that the U.S. labor market cooling is broad but expanding.

We do not see the typical signs of impending recession despite layoffs nearing two-decade highs and every classical employment-recession rule being triggered (McKelvey, Sahm & Mel).

The soft landing camp has turned into a no recession camp; and that's fine. I do believe we'll see a recession, but it's a fool's errand to put a time frame even though I'm known for calling important inflections.

Because what the mixed employment data is showing is a picture of elongated cooling that can simply mean three or five years of below trend growth as people are pushed into part-time or multiple-job employment.

When the largest consumer in the world is failing to offer sound, full-time work, what does that mean for Germany, which is absolutely collapsing, or China? What does it mean for global growth when the U.S. pushes out European-esque growth figures?

Let's get into broader employment data for a more granular picture.

First, check out here and here about why I was focusing on employment - not inflation - prior to Powell's 50 bps cut.