The federal government
reported Thursday that the United States completed its 57th consecutive month of job growth in June, the 64th consecutive month of private sector job growth. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy created 223,000 new, seasonally adjusted, private non-farm jobs in June. Government added no new jobs. The count includes both full- and part-time jobs.
Wages were flat.
The BLS notes that the "monthly change in total nonfarm employment from the establishment survey is on the order of plus or minus 90,000." That means the "real" number of new jobs created in June wasn't 223,000 but somewhere in a range between 133,000 and 313,000. That range illustrates why every month's BLS revisions of the two previous months can be so large.
The bureau found that job growth in the previous two months was 60,000 less than previously counted as it revised April's previous count of new jobs from 221,000 to 187,000 and May's from 280,000 to 254,000. That puts the monthly average for the past six months at 208,000.
The official unemployment rate—which the BLS labels U3—fell to 5.3 percent. The bureau also measures both unemployment and underemployment, labeled U6, which includes people with no job at all, part-time workers who want full-time jobs but can't find one, and many "discouraged" workers. That fell sharply in June to 10.5 percent.
The civilian workforce fell by 432,000, after having risen 397,000 in May. The employment-population ratio fell to 59.3 percent. Labor force participation fell to 62.6 percent. Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute commented:
Given the continued slack in the labor market, it is not surprising that nominal average hourly earnings only rose by an unimpressive 2.0 percent over the year: unfortunately, it is clear that the economy is continuing to leave workers high and dry. In light of this jobs report, it is more than obvious that the Federal Reserve needs to stay the course–if they act too soon, they will take the remaining wind out of the economy’s sails.
For more details about today's jobs report, please continue reading below the fold.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The uneven data comes as the economy could face a number of headwinds later in the year. A deepening crisis in Greece could hamper growth in the rest of Europe and even filter through U.S. financial markets. The combination of easy-money policies by foreign central banks and investors’ confidence in the U.S. has caused the value of the dollar to surge over the past year.
That makes American-made goods relatively more expensive abroad and has slowed manufacturing output. Also, lower oil prices compared to a year ago has slowed down what had been a rapidly expanding domestic energy industry. Employment in mining and logging, a category that includes oil-drilling jobs, fell for the sixth straight month.
Despite a horrible first year, 12.8 million new jobs have been created during the Obama administration, a huge increase over the record of the Bush administration. However, unemployment still remains higher than it was when the Great Recession began in December 2007. Joblessness is still higher in 35 states than it was before the recession.
One of the many additional measurements the BLS makes each month is the job situation for Americans in their prime working years, that is, those who are aged 25-54. This sharpens our understanding of how well the job market is doing because this gauge eliminates youth who are more likely to be employed sporadically out of choice people who are 55 and older, many of whom are retiring.
The employment rate of those in the 25-54 cohort peaked at 81.9 percent in April 2000. In December 2007, the figure had fallen to 79.7 percent and hit the bottom of the trough at 74.8 percent in November 2010. The rate been rising slowly since then. In June, it was unchanged at 77.2 percent for the fourth consecutive month.
Key aspects of the report:
Hours & Wages
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 2 cents to $20.99 in June
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls remained unchanged for the fourth consecutive month at 34.5 hours in June
•Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose x cents to $24.95.
• The manufacturing workweek moved down to 40.7 hours.
• The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls was unchanged at 33.6 hours.
Among other news in the June job report:
Demographic breakdown of official (U3) seasonally adjusted jobless rate:
• African American: 9.5 percent, down from 10.2 percent in May
• Latino: percent, 6.6 percent, down from 6.7 percent in May
• Asian (not seasonally adjusted): 3.8 percent, down from 4.1 percent in May
• American Indian (data not collected on monthly basis)
• White: 4.6 percent, down from 4.7 percent in May
• Adult women (20 and older): 4.8 percent, down from 5.0 percent in May
• Adult Men (20 and older): 4.8 percent, down from 5.0 percent in May
• Teenagers (16-19): 18.1 percent, up from 17.9 percent in May
Duration of unemployment:
• Less than five weeks: 2.355 million, down from 2.418 million in May
• 5 to 14 weeks: 2.364 million, down from 2.532 million in May
• 15 to 26 weeks: 1.393 million, up from 1.293 million in May
• 27 weeks and more: 2,121 million, down from 2.502 million in May
Job gains and losses in selected categories:
• Professional services: + 64,000
• Transportation & warehousing : + 17,100
• Leisure & hospitality: + 22,000
• Information: + 7,000
• Health care & social assistance: + 52,800
• Retail trade: + 32,900
• Construction: 0
• Manufacturing: + 4,000
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in June for the previous 10 years.
June 2005: + 243,000
June 2006: + 77,000
June 2007: + 71,000
June 2008: - 172,000
June 2009: - 467,000
June 2010: - 130,000
June 2011: + 185,000
June 2012: + 35,000
June 2013: + 127,000
June 2014: + 286,000
June 2015: + 223,000
••• •••
The BLS jobs report is the product of a pair of surveys, one of more than 410,000 business establishments called Current Employment Statistics, and one called the Current Population Survey, which questions 60,000 householders each month. Here is the BLS's explanation of its methodology. The establishment survey determines how many new jobs were added. It is always calculated on a seasonally adjusted basis determined by a frequently tweaked formula. The BLS report only provides a snapshot of what's happening at a single point in time.
It's important to understand that the jobs-created-last-month-numbers that it reports are not "real." Not because of a conspiracy, but because statisticians apply formulas to the raw data, estimate the number of jobs created by the "birth" and "death" of businesses, and use other filters to fine-tune the numbers. And, always good to remember, in the fine print, they tell us, with a 90 percent confidence level, that the actual number of newly created jobs reported each falls within a plus or minus 90,000 range.