For five years running, right up to 2019, America added an average of 191,000 jobs a month.
This morning the government is expected to report 53,000.
And the odd part is, that might be perfectly healthy.
In July, the economy actually shed 23,000 jobs… and over the past year it has averaged gains of just 26,000 a month.
Numbers that low used to show up in one place only…
Right before or during a recession.
But this time the cause is different.
You’ve got a 1-2 punch of an ageing population combiend with a clampdown on immigration… so naturally that has shrunk the pool of available workers.
And when fewer new people are entering the workforce… the economy doesn't need to create many jobs to keep everyone employed.
Meaning the same number that used to mean THE END IS NIGHT might now just mean the country ran out of young people to hire.
So while you watch your portfolio lurch around this today… remember that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things…
It’s like slamming your car brakes every time a passenger sneezes.
(That doesn’t even count the revisions as last week the government admitted it had overcounted the previous year's job growth by 79,000 - something which I can remember every government doing)
Meaning the figure that millions of people reacted to was quietly rewritten after the fact.
So here it is, the most overrated number in finance.
Which is why I stopped building a portfolio around guessing at moments like this.
The strategy I run for income doesn't ask me to predict the jobs report, or the Fed, or tomorrow's headline.
It pays me a fee up front… in exchange for agreeing to buy solid companies at prices I already want to pay.
That premium lands in the account whether payrolls come in at 53,000 or 153,000.
The noise happens on the news, yet the income happens on schedule.
Oliver