(The Center Square) – The April jobs report looked fine. Payrolls rose, unemployment held at 4.3%, hours ticked up. Nothing broke. But look one layer down and the picture is different: the three-month average is just 48,000 jobs per month – just enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. The labor force shrank. Involuntary part-time work jumped 445,000 – nearly half a million people who want full-time work and can’t get it. This cycle’s weakness isn’t appearing in the unemployment rate. It’s appearing in real wages, and underemployment. Those are harder to see in a headline, and easier to dismiss.
That pattern – stable on the surface, softer underneath – runs through everything this week.
Housing is not the mystery this week.
Zillow’s…
