This is big news.
The consensus was that the economy was going to lose somewhat over 300,000 jobs in July. The report, showed a loss of 247,000- MUCH better than expected.
The base unemployment rate dropped .1% to 9.4%. That was expected to go to 9.7%.
I will update this as I get more info.
Here is more detail from the Labor Department
In July, the average workweek of production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.1 hours.
The manufacturing workweek increased by 0.3 hour to 39.8 hours. Factory overtime was unchanged at 2.9 hours. (See table B-2.)
In July, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory
workers on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 3 cents, or 0.2 percent,
to $18.56. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have
increased by 2.5 percent, while average weekly earnings have risen
by only 1.0 percent due to declines in the average workweek.
This is excellent news. The private non-farm workweek had hit an all time low of just 33 hours, that edging up shows that there is more to be done. This needs to keep going up, and then employers will need to bring on more workers.
Also, the rise in average hourly earnings is also good news. That is another stat that had been going in the wrong direction.