Even a Trumpy CNBC anchor couldn’t conceal his dismay over the newest jobs report.
Rick Santelli, 69, was overestimated for the Friday morning launch of the February jobs report—then shortly soured as he learn the numbers, which have been worse than anticipated in a recent blow to 79-year-old President Donald Trump’s struggling financial agenda.
“Yes, here we go! This is the big Feb. job job jobs report!” Santelli mentioned on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “Non-farm payrolls: minus 92,000! Minus 92,000. That is a biggie!”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economic system shed 92,000 jobs final month whereas the unemployment charge rose to 4.4 p.c.
The company additionally revised the sturdy January job numbers from 130,000 to 126,000. An identical revision of the December figures revealed that the U.S. truly misplaced 17,000 jobs that month, and didn’t add 48,000 as initially reported. The modifications imply that employment in January and December was 69,000 decrease than beforehand reported.
The labor pressure participation charge was additionally worse than anticipated, stunning Santelli.
“If we look at labor force participation? Wow! A big drop!” he mentioned. “We were expecting 62.5; 62.0 would be the weakest—and I have to really go back on this—62.0 would equal December of ‘21 to find a smaller number.”
In a later dialogue about Trump’s Iran warfare, Santelli mulled the implications of the Middle East chaos on America’s economic system.
“The war going on is not a good thing. We don’t like war, but in the end, we don’t like nukes even better,” he mentioned. “The issue, though, is what’s going on with the war, how that’s going to affect what we perceive—at least with these numbers—is a weaker jobs number, and I’m not so sure.”
“This is weaker than expected, and it paints a certain type of deterioration that I wouldn’t have expected,” he admitted.
Just final month, Santelli was singing a unique tune.
When the roles report confirmed a rise of 130,000, the CNBC anchor whipped out an umbrella on-air.
“I’m gonna say that nobody’s gonna rain on my parade,” he mentioned, later placing on a white hat marked with “DOW 50K” in a reference to the Dow reaching 50,000 factors.
“I made this hat two months ago, and the reason I made it is exactly for a day like today,” Santelli continued. “All these naysayers steeped in politics continue to be negative. That’s okay, because 50K says you’ve all been wrong.”