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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/05/business/jobs-report-july-economy
"U.S. employers added 528,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said on Friday, an unexpectedly strong gain that shows the labor market is withstanding the economic impact of higher interest rates, at least so far.
The impressive performance — which brings total employment back to its level of February 2020, just before the pandemic lockdowns — provides new evidence that the United States has not entered a recession.
Bleak readings on consumer sentiment in recent months, along with fears that a recession lay ahead or had even begun, were “completely at odds with the reality of what the underlying data was telling us,” said Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economist. “I’ve never seen a disjunction between the data and the general vibe quite as large as I saw.”
But with the Federal Reserve pursuing an aggressive policy of interest rate increases to bring inflation under control, most forecasters expect the labor market’s momentum to slow markedly later in the year, as companies cut payrolls to match lower demand.
“At this stage, things are OK,” said James Knightley, the chief international economist at the bank ING. “Say, December or the early part of next year, that’s where we could see much softer numbers.”"