The US labour market continues to confound expectations with another very strong jobs print in July. This time non-farm payrolls rose 528k versus expectations of 250k while there were a net 28k of upward revisions to the previous two months of data. Unlike most activity data, which have typically disappointed over the past few of months, the US payrolls number has beaten the consensus forecast for the third time in a row. More significantly it also means that all the jobs lost during the pandemic have finally been fully recovered with total payrolls at an all-time high of 152.54mn. There was strength throughout with ... (full story)