Another weak U.S. jobs report may be ahead - JPMorgan model

Reuters reports that a JPMorgan model is pointing to another weak jobs number for September as consumers appear to have dialed back their travel and leisure spending since Labor Day.

The jobs tracker created by the bank's quantitative research team, fed by a range of alternative data including Chase credit card usage and airport security check volumes, suggests that September job growth will come in at 333,000. That would be far from the kind of rebound from August's disappointing job growth of just 235,000 - the lowest total since January - that policymakers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere are hoping for.

Ahead of the August non-farm payrolls report from the Labor Department released Sept. 3, the JPMorgan research team's model had estimated 353,000 new jobs would be added that month. 

The latest estimate from the quant team's model is down by nearly a quarter million from two weeks ago, and tracks a drop-off in consumer outlays on things like airline travel and restaurants, based on Chase credit card usage data.

That dovetails with recent weakness that has surfaced in other data suggesting the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus is damping a range of economic activity that had surged through the spring and early summer on the back of COVID-19 vaccinations and what was then a substantial fall in infections.