U.S. Adds 528K Jobs in July; Talk of Recession is "Premature"

The U.S. economy added 528,000 non-farm jobs in July, a sharp increase from the 398,000 jobs added in June. 

Yahoo! Finance compared the key numbers to economist estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

• Non-farm payrolls: +528,000 vs. +250,000
• Unemployment rate: 3.5% vs. 3.6%
• Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: +0.5% vs. +0.4%
• Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: +5.2% vs. +4.9%

Yahoo! quotes Renaissance Macro Research's Head of U.S. Economics Neil Dutta:

"The July employment report was an absolute knock-out, a major upside surprise relative to my expectations, and indeed much of the labor market data released up to this point. Talk of recession and a monetary policy pivot is premature.

That said, this jobs report is consistent with an inflationary boom. The Fed has a lot more work to do and in an odd way, that the Fed needs to get more aggressive in pushing up rates, makes the hard-landing scenario more likely."

Read more at Finance.Yahoo.com