Today's Scoop:

Hey friends - it’s almost Friday. Best of luck to those with a packed week! Hopefully, you can sneak out early tomorrow.

Look out for our Weekly Scoop tomorrow.

Here’s what you need to know today…

1. Layoffs rose last week, but hiring picked up in June.

2. Wages have stopped rising.

3. There are still a lot of job openings, but employers are cutting back.

S&P 500: 4,411.59
1Mo: +3% | 1Yr: +13% | 5Yr: +57%

The market inched lower today as investor positivity lost a little momentum. Signs of a strong jobs market might encourage policymakers to keep restricting the economy to control inflation.

Layoffs picked up last week. The Labor Department reported initial jobless claims rose to 248,000, slightly above pre-pandemic averages. Layoffs and unemployment have been extremely low until this month, when layoffs picked up for three straight weeks.

Hiring may have boomed in June, but wages aren’t rising anymore. A report from payroll provider ADP showed businesses hired 497,000 people in June, more than double what economists expected. Wages, though, have fallen since the start of the year. Median salaries are up only 6.4% over the past twelve months. ADP’s reports have been a little out of sync with the Labor Dept’s official jobs report that comes out tomorrow. [🤓]

There are still a lot of job openings, but the numbers are shrinking. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were 9.8 million open positions at the end of May, a decrease of roughly 500,000 from April but well above pre-pandemic levels of around 7 million. Healthcare and finance cut back the most, while education and government organizations expanded recruiting.

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The state of the jobs market

People watch four main reports to understand trends in the labor market.

The main "jobs report" comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the first Friday of each month. It highlights the unemployment rate, new jobs added, and wage growth.

The Labor Department also releases the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) each month but on a one-month lag. That report helps us understand how many open positions there are, how many people quit their jobs, and how many were hired.

There's also a monthly private-sector survey from payroll services company ADP that doesn't include government jobs and the weekly initial unemployment claims (a proxy for layoffs) report from the Labor Department.

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