Hi Reader, here's what you need to know for August 9th in 3:02 minutes.

☕️ Finimized over a cappuccino at Balzac’s in Toronto, Canada (25°C/77°F ⛈)

Today's big stories

The US economy added more jobs than expected last month, but it still has a lot of openings to fill
There are plenty of thematic ETFs out there, so it pays to know how to pick the good from the bad – Read Now
Danish shipping giant Maersk reported better-than-expected quarterly results, which is a good sign for the global economy

Assistance, Please

What’s Going On Here?

The US economy added a better-than-expected 943,000 jobs in July, but employers still can’t seem to find enough staff to turn this into a real honeymoon period.

What Does This Mean?

Even more hotels, bars, and hotel bars reopened their doors last month, so it was no surprise to see the leisure and hospitality sector responsible for the biggest increase in jobs numbers: 380,000 of them, to be precise. And while we’re on good news, the unemployment rate dropped by half a percentage point to hit a post-pandemic low of 5.4%.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: there are still almost 6 million fewer jobs than there were before the outbreak, and employers are struggling to fill a record number of vacant positions (tweet this). That’s urging them to woo new starters with higher wages and signing bonuses – so much so that average hourly earnings rose for the second month in a row.

Why Should I Care?

For markets: Bond investors aren’t pleased.
These strong figures presumably mark a step toward the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) goal of “substantial” progress in the labor market’s recovery. That might lead the Fed to start thinking seriously about scaling back its $120 billion-a-month bond-buying program. And since that would eliminate a major source of demand for US government bonds, investors sold them off on Friday.

The bigger picture: All play, no work.
For all the efforts to win over job hunters, the labor force participation rate – a measure of the share of Americans who are employed or looking for work – barely moved last month. There could be a few reasons for that: would-be employees might be nervous about catching the virus, they might have more demanding childcare responsibilities than before the pandemic, or they might just be getting more generous unemployment benefits than the money they’d earn working for a living.

You might also like: The stocks set to shine once the Fed slows its bond-buying.

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2. Analyst Take

How To Pick From All These Thematic ETFs

What’s Going On Here?

Thematic investing – investing in long-term trends that can change entire industries – is becoming more and more popular.

And there are thematic ETFs springing up left, right, and center to accommodate the sudden influx of demand – and, of course, to fish for some of the profits.

But when there are so many thematic ETFs to choose from, it’s also becoming more and more difficult to know which ones have real potential.

So that’s today’s Insight: how to screen for thematic ETFs and sort the good from the bad.

Read or listen to the Insight here

$21 billion and counting

The real estate market is booming, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

But it’s no secret how difficult it is to tap into that market if you don’t have a platform like CrowdStreet.

So it’s a good thing you have a platform exactly like CrowdStreet, which gives you unparalleled access to institutional-quality real estate deals.

In fact, over the last seven years, CrowdStreet’s investors have funded more than 500 real estate projects – from grocery stores to data warehouses – across the US. That’s almost $21 billion worth.

And with the pandemic-bruised world changing all around us, the real estate industry will have to change with it. And that means even more opportunities for investors like you.

Here’s to the next 500 deals: find out more about CrowdStreet.

Find Out More