Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Brunch, our Sunday look ahead to this week's

market-moving events, along with the weekend's top news and analysis.

Hello, today is Sunday, August 31st, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. This week starts quietly

with the markets closed on Monday for Labor Day, but the all-important

August jobs report coming Friday. Economists predict that non-formed payrolls rose by 78,000,

with the unemployment rate ticking up to 4.3 percent and average hourly earnings up 0.3%.

Wells Fargo economists say the labor market is in an increasingly delicate position, while the unemployment

rate has trended sideways in recent months, a sharp slowing in payroll growth highlights the

fragility of the job market's current balance.

Labor demand has shown tentative signs of stabilization in recent weeks, they added.

After dropping to a four-year low in mid-July, job postings on Indeed edged up through

August.

The share of small businesses planning to hire has also inched up over the past two months,

while regional Fed purchasing manager surveys point to stable, albeit weak, hiring conditions in the service sector.

That said, job growth has been extraordinarily narrow outside of health care and social services in recent months.

The ongoing federal hiring freeze, weakening in construction activity, and pressure on white-collar jobs amid

emergent technology is likely to keep the overall pace of hiring subdued. The jobs numbers will be

crucial for the Fed. A jobless rate of 4.3% would be at the top of the range for what the FMC sees as full

employment as per its mandate. Expectations for a quarter point rate cut in September are now

back to around a 9-10 chance. It would probably take a payroll's rise north of 150,000 to

derail that certainty. Anything closer to flat or a decline in payrolls could put a cut of 50 basis points back on the table.

But it's unclear what President Trump might do if a Bureau of Labor statistics under new leadership showed the economy losing jobs.

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