Stock market today: Stocks climb as Fed rate-hike fears fade, with Apple on deck – Yahoo Finance

The April jobs report is set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday. Consensus expects a slight slowdown in nonfarm payroll additions, while the unemployment rate is expected to remain flat at 3.8%.This would mark the 27th straight month the unemployment rate has held under 4%, tying a streak last seen in 1970.Given the Fed\'s aggressive interest rate hiking campaign that many believed would result in recession, the unemployment rate\'s resilience has largely defied most economic forecasting models.In a research note on Thursday, Deutsche Bank\'s economics team led by chief US economist Matthew Luzzetti highlighted that labor churn has hit its lowest level since 2016, and is now at a level usually associated with a higher the unemployment rate.Luzzetti\'s team used the ratio of total hires plus total separations as a share of the labor force

as its churn indicator. And as seen in the chart below, up until the pandemic this had closely tracked with the unemployment rate."Based on the current depressed level of churn, we would expect an unemployment rate that was above 5%, not one that is still r

easonably stable near historically low levels," Luzzetti wrote.There are several reasons Luzzetti lists for why the correlation between the two data points has separated and the unemployment rate remains historically low. For one, corporate\'s difficulty finding workers could be holding down the hiring rate, and given the challenges, companies may be more reluctant to let workers go, therefore keeping churn low, Luzzetti suggested. Additionally, an increase in immigration has also played a key role in boosting labor supply while lingering impacts from the pandemic\'s massive job losses are still at play as some sectors are still hiring at high clip.Given the Fed\'s commitment to holding rates high for longer than many hoped, these dynamics will be in focus beyond Friday\'s jobs report as investors and economists alike continue to track whether the US economy can hold on to achieve the vaunted "soft landing," where inflation retreats to the Fed\'s 2% goal without a significant downturn in the economy.