JN Fund Managers’ Weekly Market Update February 3-7, 2020
United States’ (US) Unemployment Rate Increased to 3.6% in January 2020
Earlier today, the United States’ Labour Department reported that Non-farm payrolls increased in January 2020 by 225,000. Jan-uary’s job data was above expectations of 160,000, and the growth was largely due to gains seen in the construction, healthcare, transportation and warehousing sectors but tempered by the decline of 12,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. Notwithstand-ing jobs data coming in above expectation, the unemployment rate slightly increased from 3.5% to 3.6%.
Despite the increase in January’s jobs data, we believe that the job market could slow in the future due to the weakness seen in the manufacturing sector and headwinds such as the challenges from the coronavirus outbreak and other geopolitical tensions that could have an impact on business investment as well as consumers’ propensity to spend.
