Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 336,000 jobs added in September. Read the full thread here. 

Labor market report this morning is strong:
– Payrolls up 336k in September
– Unemployment rate, labor force participation, and employment-to-population ratio held steady
– Nominal wage growth continues to decelerate 4.2% year over year

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 6, 2023

State and local jobs are finally showing some signs of life after a long and slow recovery. Employment is still down 0.5% since its pre-pandemic level, but I’m optimistic that this surge will continue. Private sector employment is now 3.5% above its February 2020 level. pic.twitter.com/wWg0DxQsH4

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 6, 2023

Nominal wage growth slowed. Faster wage growth among lower-wage workers for much of the recovery has slowed; production nonsupervisory workers noted a sharp deceleration in wage growth over the last year and a half. The pace of overall wage growth continues to decelerate. pic.twitter.com/CvLb4Q9QUf

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 6, 2023

Why applaud decelerating nominal wage growth?
1. The Fed will be looking at that closely to determine whether there’s overheating that may spur their rate hikes further.
2. Real (inflation-adjusted) wages are rising because inflation has been falling much faster than wage growth.

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) October 6, 2023