The U.S. economy created 263,000 nonfarm jobs in September, the Labor Department’s Payrolls report said Friday morning, higher than expected. Economists had forecasted an addition of 250,000 jobs in the period. The result, however, was below the previous figure of 315,000 new jobs.
The unemployment rate stood at 3.5% of the labor force, below the 3.7% expected and the previous month. The labor force participation rate fell to 62.3%, from 62.4% previously.
Average hourly wages last month came in at 5.0%, lower than the 5.1% expected by the market and the previous 5.2%.
The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 futures traded higher before the release of the data. Then they started to fall: Dow Jones Futures retreated 0.45%, S&P 500 Futures fell 0.82% and Nasdaq 100 Futures dropped 1.34%.
The US 10-year bond yield rose to 3.862%.
The dollar in Brazil started to rise. Before with a slight drop quoted at R$ 5.20, the U.S. currency began to rise 0.12% to R$ 5.2280. The Ibovespa Futures decreased the gains, with a high of 0.35%.
For the analyst Étore Sanchez, from Ativa Investimentos, despite being slightly higher, the result of job creation came in line with expectations. The surprise of the data set was the decline in the unemployment rate, which together with the participation rate, reinforces the strength of the U.S. economy.
“For monetary policy, the implication is clear: there is no reason to worry about the employment target and focus exclusively on fighting inflation. We thus maintained our view that the Fed Funds Rate will be driven to the 4.50%-4.75% range, with consecutive hikes of 75bps, 50bps and 25bps,” says Sanchez.