08/11/2026
Last Friday, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones both closed at record highs, capping the strongest week for stocks since April, right after a weaker-than-expected jobs report showed employers added fewer positions than forecast.
Here's why that connection makes sense: when hiring slows, it often reduces pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Lower rates generally make borrowing cheaper for businesses and can make stocks more attractive relative to bonds, so markets sometimes rally on weaker economic data if it increases the odds the Fed holds steady. This is a well-known market dynamic often referred to as "bad news is good news."
Interestingly, even though job growth has slowed, the unemployment rate has stayed relatively stable. Two factors help explain this: a significant shift in immigration trends over the past couple of years, and the native-born workforce simply aging out of their working years. Both trends shrink the overall pool of available workers. When fewer new workers are entering the job market, whether from lower immigration or an aging population, slower payroll growth doesn't necessarily signal weaker demand for labor, it may simply reflect fewer available workers to fill jobs.
This is a helpful reminder that headline economic numbers don't always tell the full story.
Source article: "A Low-Immigration Economy" by Brian S. Wesbury, Chief Economist, and Robert Stein, Deputy Chief Economist, First Trust Portfolios (8/10/2026): https://bit.ly/4qdeQUA