Last Friday (April 7, 2023), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – March 2023 – which revealed continuing employment growth and rising participation with unemployment falling modestly. A good confluence of events. We have been looking for a turning point in the US labour market after several months of interest rate increases. But it hasn’t come yet. Indeed, it is going in the opposite direction to that envisaged by the Federal Reserve ‘model’, upon which they justify their interest rate decisions. Guess which is wrong? Most of the aggregates are steady and in terms of the pre-pandemic period, March’s net employment change was still relatively strong. Real wages continued to decline in the face of a decelerating inflation rate. Overall, the US labour market is steady and doesn’t appear to be contracting in the face of the Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.