When Is the Next Jobs Report?

"When is the next jobs report?" isn't usually a burning question when the economy is expanding and the unemployment rate is sitting well below 5%.

But a market desperate to discount the pace of Federal Reserve rate cuts amid rising inflation expectations has made the nonfarm payrolls report a tent-pole event for forecasting monetary policy.

Last month, July's job growth was a subdued but still moderate 73,000. Job growth had been expected to fall below 100,000 per month for a while, given slow population growth and a more cautious economic environment.

From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance

Be a smarter, better informed investor.

CLICK FOR FREE ISSUE

Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters

Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.

Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.

Sign up

More troubling were the stunning downward revisions to the May and June figures, which suggest the labor market slowdown happened earlier than economists expected.

Let's stipulate that market participants are desperate for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates because lower rates equal higher future returns for stocks. The fact that the short-term federal funds rate, set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), is still at elevated levels is hardly ideal for equities.

And yet tariff uncertainty and a resilient labor market have the Fed worried about easing further. Cut too fast, with a solid economy and labor market as the backdrop, and inflation could accelerate again, the thinking goes.

True, the FOMC could respond by raising rates, but abrupt policy turns don't tend to redound to the Fed's credibility.

Rather, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the rest of the FOMC are trying to engineer what's known as a soft landing. That's where the central bank gets inflation back down to its long-term target of 2% without sparking a recession that throws millions of folks out of work.

And so if inflation is a case of too many dollars chasing too few goods, a tight labor market and rising wages are the last thing the Fed wants to see.

That's why any time we get a better-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report, it hasn't been the best news for equities. Plentiful jobs and rising wages typically help fuel inflation, at least when it's demand-driven.

Bottom line: The Fed will remain data-dependent as it works to normalize borrowing costs. That's why the market has become so hinky about the jobs report, even though we're not in recession.

When is the next jobs report?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the Department of Labor, releases the Employment Situation Summary – also known as the employment report, jobs report or nonfarm payrolls report – at 8:30 am Eastern on the first Friday of every month (unless there's a holiday or other reason to move it to a more convenient time).

The jobs report consists of separate surveys of households and employers estimating the number of people on payrolls, average number of weekly hours worked, average hourly earnings, labor force participation, unemployment rates and other data.

To get a sense of what the BLS is up to, here's an example of some of its methodology: "Each month the program surveys about 119,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 629,000 individual worksites, in order to provide detailed industry data on employment, hours, and earnings of workers on nonfarm payrolls. The active sample includes approximately one-third of all nonfarm payroll jobs."

The jobs report gives us a comprehensive look at the labor market, which is ultimately what fuels consumer spending. Recall that consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity, and you can see why the jobs report has always been front and center.

For those wondering "when is the next jobs report?," have a look at the schedule, courtesy of the BLS, below.

TL;DR: The August date will be released on September 5. Economists' consensus forecast is for payrolls to expand by around 75,000, while the unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 4.3% from 4.2%.

"Having teed up a September rate cut, the Fed risks disrupting the market if it fails to enact the cut," writes Jim Kelleher, director of research at CFRA Research. "If the jobs economy were to rebound suddenly after July's disastrous report, and if prior-month revisions are significantly to the upside, the Fed may be inclined to pause even – amid ever-intensifying pressure from the White House."

Related Content

• When Is the Next CPI Report?
• When Is the Next Fed Meeting?
• Earnings Calendar and Analysis for This Week
• Kiplinger's Economic Calendar: This Week's Reports and Results