Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
We welcome our Bloomberg TV and radio audience. I'm Danny Berger. And we saw US jobs jumping one hundred and fifteen thousand in April. It beats estimates, marking the first back to back gain in nearly a year. Joining us now and please to say is the White House Director of Economic National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. Director Hasset, thank you so much for joining a strong jobs number a beat. Let me just get your initial reaction right.
Well, you know, two months in a row now we've had blackbuster jobs numbers. And the really interesting thing is that we look at these things that you guys do too, I'm sure, called heat maps where you look by category, like where's the green and where's the red, and pretty much it was green across the board. And so what
it means is it's a rip roarin jobs market. And it's completely consistent with what we saw with the claims data just a few days ago, right like, initial claims for unemployment churns right now are the lowest since we've ever been counting them.
All the way back to the iteen sixties. And so the job market is really, really really strong, Kevin.
Part of the issue though, that people would folk to focus on is the fact that the job's creation is narrow. It's in issues like healthcare. Meanwhile, we saw financial jobs down, tech jobs down. These are exactly the type of categories you would expect if AI is having an impact on jobs in this economy. Is there a plan from this administration to combat job loss over AI's impact.
Well, right now, what we're seeing is the AI is creating job creation. There are a couple of new studies out at the National girl of Economic Research that show and one at Stanford University that show that AI adjacent jobs at AI adjacent professions are actually increasing faster than everywhere else. But of course, in the medium to long term, people are right to be concerned about what might AI
mean for them. But right now, the very very best thing that you could do in order to protect yourself and protect your career is start to use AI tools yourself to make yourself more productive.
And that's what we're seeing the data.
Guess, Kevin, will there be a point where the White House needs to address this. I've talked to many, many people who say that twenty twenty eight, the election will be centered around AI and what politicians are saying about it. You're already seeing hints of it in twenty twenty six. Does there need to be a clear plan going forward if there are huge economic consequences of what AI does?
Absolutely, of something that's being very very careful, carefully studied by all of government. We've got five different work plans depending on which direction we're going, what topic it is, whether it's AI and the workforce, AI and security and so on, and these have been underway since President Trump took office. Really so absolutely, we're working through policy options as we watch.
The data evolve.
But right now, where we are sure to see the AI adjacent jobs are the ones that are growing the fastest. And so the story the AI is destroying people's jobs right now is not anywhere in the data. But we can imagine, we can imagine things, especially once robots get better and better, then we're going to have to have more policies to help people, you know, reskill and so a lot.
So in the meantime, as you say the figures are strong for this jobs market, doesn't that essentially kill any hopes of a rate cut this year?
You know?
For me, I think that when we have a strong supply sock, then that means that there's downward pressure on inflay should and that's what we're seeing. And in fact, even with the oil prices going up, excuse me for the big truck threading byby look, even when the oil price is going up, you saw core inflay should remain stable.
And you could even see that in the wage data in today's jobs report, where there were strong wage growth but not anything that was a sign of the kind of runaway Philip's curb inflationhold that should make the FED want to lift Rakes.
Well, I suppose, Kevin. Last time you were on the show last Friday, after the CPI report, you mentioned that you were looking forward to a wash FED share because of the independence it would bring to the FED. Since then, we've learned more about the descents coming from the FOMC that one of the language of the statement change to take out any bias, any sort of easing bias. It was three descents. You can make that four if you have, Susan Collins adding as she spoke to Bloomberg, saying that
she agreed with that idea. Do you think that this is an FOMC, at least those four members that are gearing up to push back against a worsh fed shair.
Well, I can tell you speak specifically about Susan Collins. I've known her since graduate school. She's an A plus economist who goes where the evidence leads. Disappointed that these people made the decision that they did, but I'm sure that when Kevin Worf's fed shair, he'll have lots of people that will be open to argument and open to evidence, and he's a very persuasive guy. I think Kevin believes as I do, that a supply shock is a time when you don't have to lift rates just because you
have high growth. And I think that he'll bring lots of evidence to bear and convince his colleagues. So I think we're really likely to see rake cuts this year because of Kevin.
Warsh ELSEWEUR Director. Last night, the Court of ISSI International Trade once again declared unlawful President's teriffs, this time the one twenty two duties on imports. When does the administration plan to appeal this?
Well, you know, I think that we're studying all our options right now, and Jameson Grier will have a message out of that probably later today.
Are there are there any mechanisms in mind to keep those tariffs in place or any other stop gap measures.
I'm going to leave that to the trade lawyers for you.
Okay, fine, I guess there is this bigger question than if we're going to leave that part to the trade lawyers. But the economic talks with China, then, does this put the White House at a disadvantage as the President goes to have those discussions with she next week?
You know, I don't think so, first of all, that this affects, you know, one corner of the trade policy. The strategy really is to finalize the deals that we have negotiated over last year with three oh one's and two thirty two's, two authorities that are basically ironclad in the courts, and so the job has always been for Jamison Greer to get ready to sort of finalize the
deals with these much stronger authorities. We believe the IEPA authority that you originally use was a solid authority and disagree with the court's decision that is forcing us to refund the tariffs, But we have a backup plan that is going to make sure that the President's trade policy is made a reality very very shortly.
Okay, so a backup plan. Might we expect to hear something today, Director has.
It excuse me from Jamison Greer, Yes, you you have.
To talk to him, Okay, Okay, fair enough.
I spoke with him yesterday about it.
Okay. I know it is fresh news. But again to your point, the White House always looking for alternatives. What about when it comes to the Europeans. The President has sent this July fourth deadline to reach some sort of agreement. Does this also complicate things?
Well, I don't know if it complicates things.
We've got lots of deep agreements with the Europeans and they haven't really kept up their end of the bargain, and that has the President pretty frustrated. But my expectation is by the fourth of July that they will and then we'll have these this pro America, pro worker trade deal with Europe that has already been negotiated and agreed to.
Director Hasse. Before I let you go, there's been this outstanding question of the debt piles in the United States and what that means going forward and the need to service that debt. We heard from Double Line Jeffrey Gunlock speaking to Bloomberg TV, saying that he was positioning for a world in which the government unilaterally lowers coupons on existing US debt in order to manage those internal costs. I just wonder what you think of that. Might that be the direction that we had.
There's not a chance in a million years that this administration would ever do anything that looks in any way like a debt default. We believe in the strong dollar, and we believe in a strong fiscal responsible government, and so that's why we reduced the deficit last year by hundreds of billions of dollars. We reduced federal employment by the most it's ever been reduced. Actually, their fewer federal employees right now in the US than there have been
in any year since World War Two. That's the kind of fiscal responsibility the lifts confidence of the debt. And you know, we're not done yet again with the growth that we're seeing, the growth that was echoed in the reports today and last month, you know, we absolutely are seeing the kind of growth you need as you had in the nineties, to get the deficits under control.
And that's our plan.
So of course, no way to do debt default but might you look at restructuring it again in this way, maybe lowering the coupon something like that.
There's absolutely nothing that we're going to do other than be fiscally responsible.
All right, Director Kevin Hasset, thank you so much for joining us after that one hundred and fifteen beat on the jobs figures, that is, the national Director of National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, thank you so much.