Wall Street analysts underestimated June’s U.S. jobs report, expecting weak growth due to negative private payroll data and President Trump’s angry social media posts. However, the actual number of new jobs created was higher than expected, with a 147,000 increase in nonfarm payroll jobs.
Analysts now say that “seasonal noise” around government hiring skewed the numbers upward, masking weaknesses in private company hiring. According to Pantheon’s Samuel Tombs, private demand for labor is slowing, and the robust headline figure is largely due to an 80,000 increase in state and local government payrolls, with 64,000 being education jobs.
UBS analyst Paul Donovan also took a similar line, saying that the US June employment report was strong enough to dispel ideas of a sudden US interest rate cut but troubling enough to suggest a more negative outlook for the US economy. JPMorgan’s Bruce Kasman echoed this sentiment, stating that the surge in state and local hiring likely reflects seasonal noise.
The overall unemployment rate remained roughly the same, and analysts have largely been expecting Trump’s tariff regime to damage the U.S. economy but so far, no significant effects have shown up. Instead, firms are responding to policy uncertainty by slowing hiring.
Global markets saw mild declines today, partly due to profit-taking after recent highs. The Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.76% in early trading, while South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.99%. US stocks were closed for the Independence Day holiday but futures traded down 0.58%.
Source: https://fortune.com/2025/07/04/stocks-wall-street-jobs-nonfarm-payroll-number-wrong