Meanwhile, the April jobs report shows 175,000 jobs were added
last month,
which is lower than expected.
This comes as mortgage rates are on the rise for
the 5th week in a row.
ABC News business reporter Alexis Christoforous has more on that.
Alexis unemployment rate also ticked up slightly to 3.9%.
So what does it say about the state of the
economy?
I think this throws a little cold water on the
idea that our economy is overheating.
This shows us that job growth slowed.
Last month. We added 175,000 jobs.
That's still solid. Less than the 240,000 we were expecting
and certainly less than the more than 300,000 that we
added the prior month.
So here's where we added jobs,
healthcare, no surprise there. We always see that it seems
month after month,
social assistance, transportation and warehousing.
But you know, Diane, month after month we talk about
how important the wage component of this is.
It's where the Fed really hones in to look at
maybe where inflation is headed.
And we did see some,
some positive news there, at least for the Fed,
maybe not for workers, wages rose less than expected,
up 2/10 of a percent month over month and rising
4.1%.
Or 3.9% rather year over year.
So that was a little bit less than expected.
So this offers some hope that inflation may be coming
more in line with what the Fed wants.
But you know, one month does not make a trend.
So we're going to have to see this combined with
inflation reports in the coming weeks to see if this
is going to move the needle at all for the
Federal Reserve when it comes to the timing of its
interest rate cuts.
And mortgage rates are also rising again.
What does that mean for home buyers?
Well, there is some hope out there.
I like to think there's always some hope out there
and these mortgage rates are rising at a time when.
It's a critical time of the year for home buying.
You get more than 1/3 of sales overall happening between
March and June.
So now this is the fifth month or the 5th
week rather in a row that we've seen these mortgage
rates rise to 7.22%.
But at the same time,
we did see inventory starting to loosen up in certain
parts of the country,
especially in the South. Some more homes finally coming on
the market and the average listing price,
this is not the average buying price,
but the average listing price came down a little bit,
about half a percent still though above $400,000.
So again, you know, this rise in mortgage rates sort
of offsets any kind of a decline we may have
seen in,
in prices. And I think especially for first time home
buyers,
it continues to be a real struggle.
All right. ABC business reporter LEXIS Christophers,
thank you. Welcome.