#employment

April nonfarm payrolls came in at 115,000, more than double the Dow Jones consensus of 55,000, in the strongest labor market upside surprise in recent months. Unemployment ticked up to 4.3% as more workers re-entered the labor force. The beat sharply reduces the case for a June Fed rate cut, with market expectations now pointing toward September 2026.

Anthropic published a March 5 research paper proposing 'observed exposure,' a metric that combines theoretical LLM capability with real-world Claude usage. The study finds little evidence of rising unemployment in the most exposed occupations so far, but says projected job growth is weaker and hiring for younger workers may be slowing.