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as a key indicator to determine whether the federal reserve will cut interest rates by 25 or 50 basis points in two weeks, the u.s. department of labor released the august non-farm employment report at 20:30 beijing time on friday evening.

the latest data shows thatin august, non-farm payrolls rebounded to 142,000 from the previous month, while the median analyst forecast was 165,000. the unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, in line with expectations.it should be noted that these two data come from two different surveys. the employment figures come from sampling surveys of enterprises and government units, and the unemployment rate comes from household surveys.

(source: bureau of labor statistics)

it is worth noting thatthe july data was revised down from 114,000 to 89,000, while the june data was revised down from 179,000 to 118,000. in total, 86,000 new jobs were revised down in the two months.

in addition to the two data that the market is most concerned about, the u.s. bureau of labor statistics also disclosed:

the main growth in non-agricultural in august came fromconstruction industry(+34,000),healthcare(+31,000),manufacturing employment fell by 24,000, mainly reflecting a 25,000 loss in durable consumer goods.other major industries have not changed much.

average hourly earnings for all nonfarm private sector workers increased 14 cents to $35.21.the year-on-year growth rate was 3.8%。

the average workweek for private nonfarm employees rose 0.1 hour to 34.3 hours in august.

it’s about the extent of the “first drop”

as powell publicly called outfurther cooling of the labor market is not sought or welcomed", the market's attention to us employment data has risen sharply. previously, the market generally expected that the details in this report would bring about a significant difference in the extent of the interest rate cut in september.

the weaker-than-expected rebound also brought more uncertainty to market perception:the previous situation in july where non-farm payrolls were far below expectations (and caused a huge shock in global stock markets) was not clear whether it was a one-off impact of hurricanes and automobile factory shutdowns, or a sign of a general slowdown in the us economy. the august data did not give a clear trend.

satyam panday, chief economist for the united states and canada at s&p global ratings, predicted in advance that under the baseline scenario, if the august non-farm payrolls were between 150,000 and 180,000, the federal reserve would choose to cut interest rates by 25 basis points; but if it was below 130,000, they might tend to cut interest rates by more than 25 basis points, as this has been below expectations for two consecutive months.

san francisco fed president mary daly also said this week that fed officials do not want to wait to see economic weakness because it might be harder to prevent a more severe slowdown then.if you are at an inflection point in the economy, it is too late when the data is released and you cannot rely solely on the data because it is backward-looking.” 。

according to rules, friday is the last day that federal reserve officials can exchange views publicly, after which they will enter a "quiet period."officials scheduled to speak on friday include new york fed president williams and federal reserve board governor waller.

after the data was released, the cme "fed watch" tool, which reflects the direction of federal funds futures contracts, showed that the probability of a 50 basis point rate cut in september rose to 59%, and then fell back to 51%. from a practical perspective,a probability of around 50% does not represent a particularly clear conclusion, but also indicates that the chaotic situation and heated discussions about "how much the interest rate will be cut in september" will continue into the next two weeks.

(source: cme)

at the same time, the u.s. bond and stock markets also experienced short-term violent fluctuations. in terms of the u.s. bond yields, which just ended the "inversion" two days ago, the 10-year u.s. bond yield briefly plunged and then pulled back to 3.73%; the 2-year u.s. bond yield fell 4 basis points to 3.70%. this also reflects the traders' confusion about the scale of interest rate cuts.

(ten-year treasury yield, two-year treasury yield, source: tradingview)

the us stock market showed a significant strengthening, with the nasdaq futures rising from a drop of more than 1% before the market opened, and the latest drop was only 0.05%. the s&p and dow jones index futures rose and turned positive.