Speaker 1: Joining us now.
Speaker 2: I am thrilled to say we have acting Labor Secretary
Speaker 2: Julie Sue along with our own Ann Mary Hordern, and
Speaker 2: it's great to have you with us.
Speaker 1: Obviously a big reaction to this job's report.
Speaker 2: So we had a one hundred and fourteen thousand increase
Speaker 2: in payrolls. You actually spoke to us back in June
Speaker 2: and said that we were looking at the definition of
Speaker 2: a soft landing as you parsed through these numbers, would
Speaker 2: you still say that today.
Speaker 3: Hi, thank you.
Speaker 4: It's so good to be here. I mean, we you know,
Speaker 4: look at the three month average. The three month average
Speaker 4: in growth is still one hundred and seventy thousand jobs. Remember,
Speaker 4: you know, we spent a year talking about how the
Speaker 4: numbers were too high and too hot, and we had
Speaker 4: always planned for a transition to a more sustainable, steady
Speaker 4: level of growth. This number did come in below expectations.
Speaker 4: It's still over one hundred thousand jobs. It's still broad based.
Speaker 4: We saw growth in multiple industries. We saw it in construction,
Speaker 4: we saw it in in healthcare, we saw it in
Speaker 4: leisure and hospitality. There was a dramatic drop in one
Speaker 4: industry information, but generally you know, this is an indicator
Speaker 4: of continued strength in the economy, and when you look
Speaker 4: at other things, including labor force participation, which is at
Speaker 4: an all time high for prime age workers. And we continue,
Speaker 4: you know, know that there's continued work left to do
Speaker 4: to make sure that we maintain a strong economy. But
Speaker 4: we're still at a three month average of above the
Speaker 4: number that President Biden said a year ago we need
Speaker 4: to be to have a sustainable, strong labor market in
Speaker 4: a strong economy.
Speaker 3: The unemployment rate came in at four point thirty percent,
Speaker 3: and Claudia Sam has already said that this has now triggered.
Speaker 3: There's some rule which basically means a potentially around the
Speaker 3: cusp of a recession. How concerned are you and the
Speaker 3: White House about that?
Speaker 4: Well, we're not concerned about that specifically in heart because
Speaker 4: the unemployment rate that it grew from has been so
Speaker 4: historically low and has been so historically low for such
Speaker 4: a long time. I believe even Claudia Sam herself expressed
Speaker 4: some questions about whether the rule applies when you start
Speaker 4: at a at four percent or just above four percent
Speaker 4: unemployment rates. So again we have to keep in mind,
Speaker 4: you know, these numbers come in not in a vacuum,
Speaker 4: but as part of a overall picture of an economy
Speaker 4: that we've been talking about for some time that did
Speaker 4: not happen by accident, that was not inevitable, in which
Speaker 4: there's been tremendous growth and an economic recovery that is
Speaker 4: frankly the envy of the world. And so we know
Speaker 4: that the work is not finished. We know that, you know,
Speaker 4: you don't get you know, we don't stop doing the
Speaker 4: work that we've been doing. But one example of the
Speaker 4: effectiveness of the President's economic policies is that some of
Speaker 4: the growth is being driven by private investment into areas
Speaker 4: in which the President's Investing in America agenda has brought
Speaker 4: in public and that and so those investments continue to
Speaker 4: hit the street, will continue to keep delivering them in
Speaker 4: different communities, and we'll continue to watch the numbers.
Speaker 2: And of course we're continuing to watch the numbers. We're
Speaker 2: also watching the sotock market reaction right now because we're
Speaker 2: seeing a big wipeout in futures, and the conversation that's
Speaker 2: happening among investors, among market participants is this concern that
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve is behind the curve that they waited
Speaker 2: too long to.
Speaker 1: Cut interest rates. Is that the view of the White
Speaker 1: House as well?
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't comment on Fed policy. I know
Speaker 4: they have they've indicated plans and what they are likely
Speaker 4: to do. You know, we still believe that this is
Speaker 4: an economy that again did not recover by accident, but
Speaker 4: also is one that reflects, you know, the Biden Harris
Speaker 4: commitment to working people. The real wages remain up over
Speaker 4: the year, They're still higher than the rate of inflation. This,
Speaker 4: as I've said over and over again, means more money
Speaker 4: in the pockets of working people. And some of the
Speaker 4: story that's not part of the labor market data is
Speaker 4: that we continue to see more workers join unions, more
Speaker 4: workers reach first union contracts, more contracts result in record
Speaker 4: wage increases. Those are all further indicators of what we
Speaker 4: believe is part essential to a strong economy, which is
Speaker 4: that working people do well, working people share in the
Speaker 4: profits that they help create, and working people get a
Speaker 4: voice at the table.
Speaker 3: We had Governor J. B. Pertzger though, yesterday, talking about
Speaker 3: the loss of manufacturing jobs in Illinois, calling on the
Speaker 3: Federal Reserve to move if.
Speaker 1: The White House is not going to take a stance.
Speaker 3: I imagine more Democratic leaders are going to come out
Speaker 3: and also say that this partially may blame the FED
Speaker 3: because it is an election year and they don't want
Speaker 3: themselves to be blamed. How concerned are you that FED
Speaker 3: potentially acted in a way that means that more Americans
Speaker 3: would be losing their job.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, manufacturing is a good example, right
Speaker 4: of something President Biden has said from the very beginning
Speaker 4: that we need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the
Speaker 4: United States. We need to make sure that the iconic
Speaker 4: industries like the auto industry that have powered this country's
Speaker 4: middle class continue to do so. You know, Illinois is
Speaker 4: a place where, due to the uaw's historic contract, the
Speaker 4: President I travel to Belvedere, Illinois, talking about factories that
Speaker 4: are going to open that have been closed for a
Speaker 4: really long time. These reversals of decades long trends that
Speaker 4: were not good for workers, that were not good for
Speaker 4: unions due to failed policy of the past, cannot be
Speaker 4: reversed overnight. But we are seeing movement, and so that progress.
Speaker 3: But Julie, many industries barely grew. Manufacturing retail information all
Speaker 3: negative over the last two months.
Speaker 4: If you look at manufacturing since President Biden came into office,
Speaker 4: those numbers are up, and there's continued investments that making.
Speaker 4: If you look at construction jobs, those are also up.
Speaker 4: Those are two areas in which, again federal investments are
Speaker 4: helping to drive that change, helping to drive that growth.
Speaker 4: And so we don't make too much of any one month,
Speaker 4: but when you look at the trend, those are both
Speaker 4: sectors that are up. Doesn't mean we don't have more
Speaker 4: work to do, doesn't mean there aren't communities that remain
Speaker 4: devastated from failed economic policies in the past that have
Speaker 4: failed working people, that have left working people behind. We
Speaker 4: remain committed to doing that work, and the overall numbers
Speaker 4: still demonstrate growth there, and we'll continue to put dollars
Speaker 4: into communities to rebuild them and bring jobs back.
Speaker 2: And parsing through these numbers, it did seem that manufacturing
Speaker 2: payrolls did add a thousand jobs last months, but to
Speaker 2: Amory's point, that comes after two straight months of declients.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about revisions here because on the
Speaker 2: top headline number, there was another revision to last month's number,
Speaker 2: and we've seen that increasingly over the past several months
Speaker 2: that the prior month's numbers are revised down.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious what your thoughts are is to why.
Speaker 2: That dynamic is unfolding, because again the question among investors
Speaker 2: is how do I trust these numbers?
Speaker 4: Well, you not at the top that the this month's
Speaker 4: revisions were fairly minor revisions. I always say this too,
Speaker 4: are a feature of the numbers, not a bug. It's
Speaker 4: not a it's a it's not an error. It's basically
Speaker 4: continuously these numbers get revised because it's the trade off
Speaker 4: between getting in out numbers quickly and UH and getting
Speaker 4: complete numbers. So to get the numbers out every single
Speaker 4: month as we do it requires a certain amount of
Speaker 4: of projection and then once the real data comes in
Speaker 4: because these are these aren't just numbers. These are actual people, right,
Speaker 4: They're people who respond to surveys, They're people who answer questions.
Speaker 4: They don't always answer them at the time that I
Speaker 4: come here to talk about it. And that's why we
Speaker 4: revise when we get the more accurate numbers. That has
Speaker 4: always been the case, and that is why the BLS
Speaker 4: data is the gold standard when it comes to labor
Speaker 4: marketing information.
Speaker 3: If we have four point three percent today, where do
Speaker 3: you see the unemployment rate year end.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not going to make a prediction about that,
Speaker 4: but i will say again we look at everything in
Speaker 4: the context of the whole and so GDP remains very strong,
Speaker 4: layoffs remain relatively low, the labor force participation rate remains high.
Speaker 4: All of these are counter indicators, they're not indicators of recession,
Speaker 4: and so of course we keep an eye out. Of course,
Speaker 4: we have to keep on doing the work that we
Speaker 4: are doing, and you know, we do want the economy
Speaker 4: to reach a state in which there's more steady, stable
Speaker 4: growth and the you know, one hundred and fourteen thousand
Speaker 4: a month. You know, there were in the last administration
Speaker 4: seven months of numbers that were less than one hundred thousand,
Speaker 4: and so again we are we're in a transition period.
Speaker 4: We've always said there would be, that was part of
Speaker 4: the plan. This number is cooler than expected, and so
Speaker 4: we have continued work that we need to do, and
Speaker 4: the investments in the presence of Investing in America agenda
Speaker 4: are going to be really key to continue to power
Speaker 4: our strong economy.
Speaker 1: Well, we have to leave it there.
Speaker 2: Really appreciate your time on this busy morning. Our thanks
Speaker 2: of course to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Sue, and of
Speaker 2: course Bloomberg's and Marie Hordern