Dear Bernie Sanders, it is our great pleasure to introduce to you, "Flippy", the burger-flipping robot that will soon replace all those fast food workers that you're working so vehemently to get fired via your efforts to introduce artificially high $15 per hour minimum wage rates.
American companies are riding high on the optimism created by President Trump’s election victory, adding a staggering 298,000 jobs to the U.S. economy during Trump’s first month in office. That monster figure comes from ADP, a payroll processing company that surveys the U.S. job market. The number far exceeded the 190,000 new jobs that economists were forecasting. President Trump tweeted a self-congratulatory note from the @POTUS account, referencing the long overdue “surging” growth in the jobs market and admitting the numbers are “much more than expected!“ U.S.
Following the massive ADP employment beat (but productivity disappointment), March rate hike odds finally upticked to certainty. Fed Funds futures now imply a 100% chance that The Fed hikes next week.
Up from low 20s to 100% in a month...
What did The Fed see that suddenly spooked them all?
Which reminds us of the WTF-est chart we know of right now - as The Fed's forecast for
GDP collapses, so the odds of a rate hike soar (FF Futs tumble)...
Following January's surge in employment (biggest gain in 7 months), February's ADP print exploded higher to 298k (5 sigma above all expectations). This is the third biggest monthly employment gain of the expansion. It appears the 'Trump Effect' is the biggest driver as the ADP payroll surge was mostly due to a record surge in employment for goods-producing industries.
Private sector employment surged by 298,000 for the month, with goods producers adding 106,000. Construction jobs swelled by 66,000 and manufacturing added 32,000.
Via Walter Block of The Mises Institute,
The Creation of Jobs
If the media tell us that "the opening of XYZ mill has created 1,000 new jobs," we give a cheer. When the ABC company closes and 500 jobs are lost, we're sad. The politician who can provide a subsidy to save ABC is almost assured of wide spread public support for his work in preserving jobs.