Stocks sink Friday ahead of weak jobs report

Stocks on Monday have sunk ahead of the release of July's jobs report by the Labor Department showing a weaker-than-normal month for the labor market.

An investors cautiously looking at a stock graph.

According to the data release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American economy only added roughly 73,000 jobs in the month of July, far below expectations and an outlier compared to previous months which had steady or even higher-than-expected rates of job growth.

Federal government payrolls fell by 12,000, thus being a significant factor in the drop.

Many economic analysts have attributed to this downfall in job growth to tariff-related layoffs, which companies have been implementing over the past few months to prepare for higher expenses due to tariff-induced inflation.

Michael Reid, the senior U.S. economist at RBC capital, stated in response to this report that, "We just don’t have a roadmap yet with respect to tariffs… you don’t want to make that decision… until you know what your costs of running your business are going to be."

As a result, stocks fell significantly on Friday as investors interpreted the data as a negative sign of tariffs. As of 12:27 PM EST, The S&P 500 composite is down 1.1% and the Dow 30 index is down 0.9%.