CNN —The US economy appears to be on a knife’s edge, and Friday’s jobs report will be the deciding factor as to the next direction. Economists are expecting that the August report should reaffirm that the labor market is merely cooling versus outright weakening. Inflation had cooled, and the labor market was rolling right along and doing its part to keep consumers spending and the economy churning. Friday’s jobs report should provide further reassurance that the labor market is merely softening and not collapsing, economists predict. “It would be a mistake to define the labor market as being excessively weak at this stage.”Instead, the signals indicate that the labor market has moved from being extremely strong and into better balance, she said.

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Persons: ” Tuan Nguyen, —, ” Karin Kimbrough, “, ” Oliver Allen, ” Allen, ”, Andrew Challenger, Nick Bunker, Pantheon’s Allen, Beryl “, Mike Skordeles Organizations: CNN, RSM, Federal, LinkedIn, Labor, Department of Labor, “ Companies, Pantheon Macroeconomics, BLS, Employers, ADP, Challenger, Technology, “, North America, Bank of America Locations: US, Michigan, Texas