Here Are 2 Reasons We May See Higher Unemployment Figures In September's Jobs Data

Blu Putnam joined Benzinga's Premarket Prep team to discuss the upcoming jobs economic data in September and what effect it might have on the market.

Transcript

00:00Well, the jobs number, I think, is really critical.

00:02It's September 6th.

00:03I'm looking for 150,000, which would be a bounce up, not a particularly big bounce up, but

00:08a little bit.

00:09There are two reasons for that.

00:11One, go to the next picture, and I'll give you the two reasons on the job data.

00:17The two reasons are that we had Hurricane Beryl in Texas that may have depressed the

00:24numbers a little bit, and then these numbers, zig and zag, and we're due for a zag.

00:29We've had a zig, and so a little bit of a bounce back.

00:34It really should not be ruled out.

00:37The reason these numbers are so, so critical is we triggered the SOM rule.

00:42That's economist Claudia SOM.

00:45She's a great economist.

00:47She did some data mining a number of years back to see if you could kind of warn the

00:52federal government that a recession was coming, and she used the unemployment rate.

00:57We have triggered that rule.

00:59We've gone from 3.4 back in 2023 to 4.3, but it's a statistical pattern.

01:09It is not causal.

01:10She'll tell you that.

01:12What's different this time around is the unemployment rate is rising when we're still creating 100,000

01:19plus jobs.

01:20If we're creating 100,000 jobs, even though it's weaker than it used to be, you're not

01:25going to have a recession.