Market Update

Despite the considerable attention on this week's US employment report, gaining a clear understanding of the US job market remained a challenge.
While it was positive to see, as we had anticipated in our previous Market Update, a substantial increase in jobs, it wasn't enough to indicate that the US economy was achieving significant and consistent progress. In June, 850,000 jobs were added, marking the largest increase in nearly a year. Unfortunately, this positive development was accompanied by a decline in the average weekly hours worked to 34.7 in June, and the May reading was also revised downward.
However, without sounding overly optimistic, it's important to acknowledge that the US job market recovery still has a considerable distance to cover. Even now, there are 6.8 million fewer Americans employed than before the coronavirus outbreak. Consequently, the Federal Reserve is likely to maintain low US interest rates for the foreseeable future, particularly in light of potential disruptions to supply chains resulting from the ongoing spread of the Delta coronavirus variant.
The upcoming week is expected to be relatively quiet, with just four US trading days and limited economic data releases. Of particular interest will be the release of UK GDP data for May, figures related to UK industrial and manufacturing production, Chinese Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation data, and the minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve monetary meeting held on June 16, 2021.