00:00Coming in there, 197,000, John, that's just more or less in line with expectations.
00:05And that number really leans into what we kind of already know, the jobs market is in a good space.
00:10These initial jobless claims this morning reinforcing the idea that we haven't seen broad-based announcements of layoffs, for example.
00:18And we know that the official jobs ad is also pointing towards robust employment and low unemployment at the moment.
00:24Of course, Fed policymakers also expecting unemployment to remain low.
00:28So when you see these initial jobless claims this morning, sometimes there's volatility in these numbers.
00:34Not today, kind of reinforcing we are where we are. The jobs market seems to be in an OK space
00:38for now.
00:39Rarely volatility, Ender, I might suggest, because every single week, Ender, it just feels like it's 200K, 200K.
00:45Four-week moving average, 202. The number this morning, 197. The estimate, 200. The previous week, something like 198.
00:52And we had this line from a Fed official in the last week. It was Neil Kashkari of the Minneapolis
00:57Fed.
00:58He said inflation, quote, is in all aspects of the economy.
01:02Ender, are you starting to see it build in the labour market? Because that would be a big development.
01:09It's the missing piece of the jigsaw, John. We're not seeing it yet.
01:13I mean, even though unemployment is low, as we just talked about, we're not seeing broad-based wage pressure.
01:17There are pockets of hiring pressure in the economy. We know that there are sectors where they complain they still
01:22can't get labour.
01:23Some of that is linked to the AI boom. But when you look at the aggregate data, we're not seeing
01:27broad-based wage pressure.
01:28If that was to happen, then you'd probably move to a whole new, different sense of urgency with Fed officials.
01:34But nonetheless, even this week, we're starting to get an increased sense of urgency from those officials.
01:38Michael Barr yesterday talking about the need for further policy adjustments, in plural, which I think caught a lot of
01:43people's attention.
01:44And we had, of course, New York Fed President John Williams this morning talking about that they have more work
01:48to do.
01:49So you can imagine if we get to the point, John, where the labour market starts to show inflation pressure,
01:54then we really will be in a very different Fed debate.
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