The U. S economy remains strong enough last month to create 263,000
new jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%. But that was after
the labor force shrank. Overall job growth remained solid, but it's
dropped from the first half of the year when the economy created
roughly 400,000 new jobs a month.
Stocks sank on Wall Street as investors weighed the news and feared
more interest rate hikes. Jones industrial Average plunged 630 points
to close at 29,000 to 97, the NASDAQ fell 421 points. The S and P
500 slipped. 105 economics correspondent Paul Solman digs into the
details.
The economy kept cooking up jobs in September, but at a slower pace,
so there's signs that hiring is cooling cooling. I would say it was
normalizing its steady gains, and those are the kind of gains that
we want to see in the economy. We don't want the labor market to
overheat, and there was steady wage gains to, says economist Neela
Richardson is worried about the wages are going to rise too much
because the labor market conditions are tight. Main Street is concerned
that their wages are not rising.
Laugh to keep up with the pace of inflation in the cost of living.
But given continued inflation, most economists and the Fed
See you. Labor market That hasn't cooled enough. Yet The unemployment
rate went down to 3.5%. That is a 50 year historical low again, suggesting
that the labor market is very tight and that the Fed needs to keep
a really aggressive stance when it comes to inflation and how wages
could drive inflation in the future.
Sure enough signs of a tight labor markets still abound. Employers
and sectors like restaurants can't fill the jobs already out there.
There are right now about 10 11 million and fill the vacancies.
Jobs. Labor economist Giovanni Peri before covid, Uh, there would
have been, you know, 567 million unfilled job at every given times.
One reason we're still seeing those signs. We have had many few
You were immigrants come into the country since late 2019 for both
documented and undocumented and their population in working age and
contribution to employment has essentially stagnated for two years.
Well, how many people are we talking about? How many fewer working
age immigrants, you know? 1.5 million.
Uh, immigrants, a little less than that, so that we are missing.
Polls show many Americans are concerned about undocumented immigrants.
But stagnant immigration overall has been a drag on the whole economy,
as measured by GDP estimates, researcher Jose even Rodriguez Sanchez
and impact of not having enough immigrant workers.
It was around 1.1% per year in 2020 and 2021 around
roughly $200 billion. If we do not have enough workers we cannot
produce. If we cannot produce people cannot have access to goods
and services. The shortage of immigrants is especially acute in sectors
like personal care that rely on them. 80% of our staff are foreign
born Adam Lampert runs a Dallas, Texas senior care company.
We're open every single day. We want people to call us. The reality
Is that the people who answer the caller Democrats, but there aren't
enough of them to fill care jobs.
For several reasons, including a clogged immigration processing system.
It's that our government is backlog and that they don't have the
resources to address
The the visas, which are central to employment.
Another issue a new legal ruling that's made the future of the deferred
action for childhood arrivals. DACA uncertain at least 20% of our
employees or DACA individuals who are given the authority to work
while they're here out. Flores is legal counsel for a chain of Texas
restaurants. Doctor individuals have been here since they were young
young Children.
But because because of the lawsuit, at some point will not be able
to work at her Atlanta electrical firm Tonya Hicks cites another
problem years of deportations. Some people have the right to be here
and go through the process, and they were still deported.
And a lot of people lost their lives when they got into different
countries.
So I think it's a little PTSD. Finally, the reason it's become a
cliche. Most American born workers won't do the jobs. Immigrants
will, says Hicks. Some of them will work longer. Some of them will
working harder conditions because they're already conditioned to
do that. The bottom line for the restaurants Al Florez represents.
You've got to have immigrant labor to keep our keep our businesses
going, and fewer workers means fewer people to care for loved ones,
says Adam Lambert, if we are stiff arming immigrants
As a policy in the United States, keeping them out.
We're only hurting ourselves. With more jobs more than 10 million
already unfilled and a civilian labor force that actually shrank
last month. No wonder businesses are concerned.