ADP, Challenger reports show tepid labor market

This is employment week in the markets, with several data points coming out on the labor market. This morning, Challenger, Gray & Christmas released its layoff report, which showed job cut announcements declining 21,408 on the month. This is the fourth month in a row of declines. Layoffs are still up 7.4% from a year earlier, but that is a much more moderate pace of increase than we've seen recently (47.3% YOY in April, for instance, or 180.7% in March).

Meanwhile, the ADP employment report showed the economy shedding 532,000 jobs in May. That was ever-so-slightly worse than the -525,000 forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg. April's reading was revised higher to -545,000 from -491,000. The May decline was the smallest since November.

Bottom line: The labor market still looks tepid/lukewarm, but it's not getting worse.