Christopher Lowe

You know, you have to feel good about it, right?

It's the best job growth we've seen in over a year.

And the unemployment rate dropping back to about four and a quarter percent, which is also something we haven't seen in months.

So, yeah, it's a good, healthy job market.

You know, I wish I could say it was.

There was a lot of weird stuff going on in the quarter.

And the biggest thing was that ice storm that locked in the South through the end of January, early February.

Because of that, job growth was probably a little overstated in March.

The drop in the unemployment rate is primarily because there's fewer people in the labor force either working or looking for jobs.

It's a direct reflection of the lack of immigration in the last year or so.

Workers are getting harder to find.

Yeah, absolutely.

Look, anytime wage growth is outstripping inflation, that's a good thing because it does mean the affordability crisis post-pandemic is still receding.

But it's also the slowest wage growth ever.

in the cycle so far.

So this is sort of the flip side of the declining unemployment rate.

The declining unemployment rate tells you the job market's getting tighter.

But the fact that wage growth is slowing, that tells you that at least for now,

You know, there is no shortage of labor because if there was, then companies would be paying up.

Thank you, Sabri.