✔ Headline job creation of 143k beat the 128k estimate.

✔ Wage growth continues to decline:

⬇ Job stayers: 4.7%, compared to 4.7% YoY ⬇

⬇ Job changers: 6.6%, compared to 7.3% YoY ⬇

In a sentence, the U.S. economy again experienced improved hiring without accelerated wage growth, reinforcing the Fed’s view that the labor market will no longer drive inflation.

The narrowing gap between stayers and changers is another indication that the worst of labor market pressure is behind us. At one point, employers were offering new hires raises more than double those given to existing workers. That isn’t the case anymore. Now, the gap is 1.9%, far off the 8.8% peak. This shrinking gap reinforces the notion of a looser, more balanced labor market beyond what the headline metrics alone suggest.