ECONOMISTS: Don't Be Fooled By The Bad Jobs Report, The September 'Taper' Is Still Happening

Some folks have it in there heads that the weak report could cause the Fed to postpone tapering its massive bond purchasing program.

Capital Economics' Paul Ashworth disagrees.

In a note just out, he says there were still enough positive nuggets, especially in hourly earnings, to support tapering now:

Our best guess is that the cumulative evidence of improvement over the past year will convince a majority of officials that the tapering should begin at the next FOMC meeting in another couple of weeks' time, but we're not going to pretend this is a certainty.

But he goes on to say the odds still favor the taper.

Overall, with other indicators like initial jobless claims pointing to a strengthening labour market and the activity surveys indicating a pick-up in economic growth, we still expect the Fed to go ahead with the taper later this month.

TD Securities Eric Green agrees:

The August jobs report will not change our view on tapering this month. This was a weak report, but it does not change the tapering call because it was not weak enough and there is a lack of corroborating evidence across the broader economic landscape to suggest a new lower jobs trend has emerged. The Fed does not need strong growth to justify tapering, they need the absence of weak growth.

The next FOMC meeting starts Sept. 17.