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Investing.com -- Goldman Sachs said in a note Monday that it expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates three times before the end of the year, citing a sharp slowdown in U.S. job growth.
“We suspect that weak job growth and concern about further downward revisions and downside risks have already convinced the Fed leadership to resume rate cuts,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.
They forecast three 25 basis point cuts in September, October and December, with “two more next year.”
The bank said that before the July employment report, the U.S. labor market had appeared to achieve “exactly what the FOMC hoped when it first began hiking in 2022: a gentle rebalancing followed by a stabilization.” But recent data revisions changed the outlook.
Goldman Sachs now estimates “trend job growth is now clearly below even that low bar at 30k per month,” versus a breakeven pace of around 80,000 needed to sustain full employment.
The analysts added that “future revisions to job growth are more likely to be negative,” citing the payroll model, healthcare sector reporting and immigration estimates as areas of concern.
The slowdown, they said, extends beyond trade and immigration effects. “‘Catch-up hiring’ in a few industries now appears over and job growth outside those industries has fallen to around zero,” Goldman Sachs wrote.
While the unemployment rate has remained relatively stable, the bank warned that “even modest further softening in the labor market would be concerning” given that employment is already close to its maximum sustainable level.
Although a 50 basis point cut is possible, Goldman Sachs said it “would require a larger rise in the unemployment rate or worse payrolls numbers than we expect.”