JOBS DATA DISAPPOINTS
Eagerly awaited non-farm payroll data undershot expectations, as payrolls increased by 148,000 in December against estimates of 190,000. Most predictions from major banks were off by a massive margin!
The biggest gains by sector were for healthcare (31,000), construction (30,000) and manufacturing (25,000) while averagely hourly earnings were up 2.5%.
The retail sector in particular did struggle during that month. The data showed a loss of 20,000 jobs across the sector even though December is usually the busiest month for retail firms because of Christmas. This could be seen as further proof that online shopping is taking a major chunk out of high-street businesses. This is particularly staggering when you look at today's data from a yearly scale - retail added 203k jobs in 2016, but lost 67,000 in 2017 - a bitter reversal of fortunes.