US Jobs Report Tracker

Initial claims for the week ending August 8 printed between 205,000 and 210,000, and Kalshi's ladder settled accordingly—every rung through At least 205,000 resolved Yes, everything from At least 210,000 up resolved No. That is a soft but not alarming number, and the book for next Thursday's week-ending-August-15 print has barely moved off it: At least 205,000 trades at 61.5% and At least 210,000 at 44.5%, centering on roughly the same 207,000.

The main event is still the August employment report on Friday, September 4, the first read after July's shock −23,000 payrolls print. August payrolls now center near +60,000 (Above 60,000 at 51%, Above 70,000 at 39.5%), so the book expects a rebound but a weak one. Unemployment is where the money actually is: $19,728 of 24-hour volume on the U3 ladder, roughly six times the payrolls book, with Above 4.0% at 88% and Above 4.1% at 58.5%.

The same exchange is pricing the same number two ways, and the answers differ. Differencing the Cumulative U3 ladder implies exactly 4.0% at 6% and exactly 4.3% at 27%. The bucket Categorical prices those same outcomes at 11.5% and 23.5%. The Combo book—which pairs U3 and payrolls in one contract—implies 4.1% or below at about 46%, against the Cumulative ladder's 41.5%. Three books, one print, a five-point spread on the same question.

The Combo is also the most distinctive contract in the stack: its top leg, U3 at 4.1% or below with payrolls below 50k at 26%, is a joint bet on a soft-but-not-deteriorating report—the shape traders seem to expect after July.

The two prints that shape expectations into September 4. Weekly initial jobless claims for the week ending August 15 release Thursday, August 20—the ladder is nearly unchanged from the number that just settled, which is itself the signal. ADP's private-payrolls estimate lands Wednesday, September 2, two days ahead of the government report, and it is centered at Above 50,000 at 50.5%—almost exactly where the official payrolls book sits, so the two are not currently disagreeing.

The year-scale view. Kalshi's Cumulative on how high unemployment gets before 2027 puts Above 4.5% at 24.5% and Above 5% at 4.1%—the market does not expect the labor market to break. Next to it, the bucket Categorical on where the August rate lands, which is worth reading against the Cumulative ladder in the row above because the two books do not agree.

• The market is treating July as a shock, not a trend. August payrolls center at +60,000 after a −23,000 print. September's book, already listed, centers higher still at Above 40,000 at 61.5%.
• Volume says unemployment matters more than payrolls. $19,728 on the U3 ladder against $3,456 on payrolls. The single deepest rung anywhere in the stack is Above 4.0% at $10,417.
• The cross-book spread on the U3 print is the trade worth watching. Cumulative, Categorical and Combo disagree by up to five points on the same outcome, and all three settle on the same BLS release at 8:30 a.m. on September 4.
• Claims are the tell between now and then. Two more weekly prints land before the employment report; the August 20 book is currently priced flat to the number that just settled.
• The corporate-layoffs book is the slow-moving companion. Oracle at 85.5% and Amazon at 80% to announce layoffs before year-end, with Oracle carrying essentially all of the day's flow.