Key inflation, employment data out this week
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By the end of the week, we should know a good bit more about how the labor market and inflation performed in late summer.
Driving the news: On Tuesday, the Labor Department will release the August Job Openings and Labor Turnover data, giving a fine-grained reading on the evolution of the job market.
- Wednesday will bring some of the first September data on private payrolls, from ADP. The government's September jobs report is due out Friday.
- Also Wednesday, the Commerce Department is set to release August data on personal income and consumption spending, alongside the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index that the Fed targets.
Between the lines: These data points will help determine whether the Fed raises interest rates at a second consecutive meeting in late October.
- The central bank will also have more September inflation data in hand before that meeting, due out in the weeks ahead.
By the numbers: Analysts expect that measure of inflation to tick up on a month-over-month basis. The consensus projection of forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg is for a 0.3% rise in core prices and 0.5% in overall prices, compared with 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively, in July.
- The consensus forecast is for a solid 98,000 jobs added in September and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%.
- Weekly jobless claims have been hovering near multi-decade lows in recent weeks, supporting the idea that the labor market is in good shape and may even be accelerating.
Of note: Wednesday is also the end of the third quarter (and the U.S. government's fiscal year).
- It looks like it has been a blockbuster quarter for growth. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker puts its real-time estimate at 5%. That would be the strongest GDP growth since the fourth quarter of 2021.
