Federal Reserve officials grappled on Tuesday with April's surprisingly weak employment growth, maintaining faith in the U.S. economic rebound but acknowledging the pace of the jobs recovery may prove choppier than anticipated. The United States added 266,000 jobs last month, about a quarter of forecast by Fed officials. The April report instead raised a broad set of questions about the complicated interplay among peoples' decisions about whether to work during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, constraints stemming from the lack of child care and closed schools, the slowing pace of COVID-19 vaccinations, global supply bottlenecks for critical goods like semiconductors, and the enhanced federal unemployment benefits that may be encouraging some potential workers to stay home. In contrast to the low number of jobs created in April, job openings as of the end of March hit a record 8.1 million, narrowing the wedge with the roughly 9.8 million people still unemployed.
China demographic crisis looms as population growth slips to slowest ever
China's population grew at its slowest in the last decade since the 1950s as births declined, sowing doubt over Beijing's ability to
power its economy as it succumbs to the same ageing trends afflicting developed nations like Japan. With growth having ebbed ever
since a one-child policy was introduced in the late 1970s, the 2020 results of the country's once-a-decade census on Tuesday
showed the population of mainland China increased 5.38% to 1.41 billion. That was the least since modern census-taking began in
1953. Data showed a fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman for 2020 alone, on par with ageing societies like Japan and Italy. The
number meant China narrowly missed a target it set in 2016 to boost its population to about 1.42 billion by 2020, with a fertility rate of around 1.8.
EU confident of COVID-19 travel certificate for summer
The European Commission expects to finish work soon on a COVID-19 certificate that could allow citizens to travel more easily this
summer in the 27-nation bloc, the EU executive said on Tuesday. The pass would allow those vaccinated, recovered from COVID-19
or with negative test results to cross borders in a union where restrictions on movement have weighed heavily on the travel and
tourism industry for more than a year. A two week pilot project to test the technology a few countries at a time began on Monday, the
EU Commission said. The European Parliament says no one will be obliged to use the EU certificate and it must not be considered a
vaccine passport.
Fed rhetoric restrains dollar as traders eye inflation
The 10-year government bond yield (interpolated) on the previous trading day was 1.77, +0.00 bps. The benchmark government
bond yield (LB31DA, 10.5 years) was 1.835, +0.50 bps. LB29DA could be between 1.81-1.85. Meantime, the latest closed US 10-
year bond yields was 1.64%, +1.00bps. USDTHB on the previous trading day closed around 31.10 Moving in a range from 31.15-
31.23 this morning. USDTHB could be closed between 31.17-31.25 today. Meantime, The U.S. dollar hovered near its lowest levels
of the year on Wednesday as traders hung on to bets that the Federal Reserve would remain steadfast in its easy policy settings
ahead of data expected to show a sharp rise in annual U.S. inflation.
Sources : Bloomberg, CNBC, Investing, CEIC
