Overview
- On Fox Business, senior White House adviser Peter Navarro urged investors to revise expectations down significantly for the imminent jobs report.
- Navarro said sub-100,000 monthly payroll gains could represent a new steady state and denied he was predicting a weak number when pressed by host Maria Bartiromo.
- He attributed slower hiring to mass deportations and claimed Biden-era job gains went to undocumented immigrants, a contention reported as lacking corroborating evidence.
- The BLS release, delayed by a brief government shutdown, follows a year of unusually weak growth, with December showing roughly 50,000 jobs added and 4.4% unemployment.
- JPMorgan strategist David Kelly warned of soggy consumption and weak job gains even as equities rally, underscoring concern over the real economy ahead of the report.