The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ reported Friday morning that the seasonally adjusted net gain was 187,000 private-sector jobs in June, with 35,000 added in the public sector, for a total of 222,000. The consensus of experts in Bloomberg’s survey of experts conducted earlier in the week had forecast a gain of 170,000 new jobs. It was the best advance since February.
The bureau also revised its previous reports of job gains for May from 138,000 to 152,000, and for April from 174,000 to 207,000.
June marked the 81st consecutive month of overall job growth. A separate survey placed the headline unemployment rate—which the bureau labels U3—at 4.4 percent, an historically low rate. The last time the unemployment rate was at this level was 10 years ago, in May 2007. The lowest the rate has been in the past quarter-century was 3.8 percent in April 2000.
So, once again, the Trump regime has benefited from the economy it inherited from the Obama era, a far cry from the economy inherited from the Bush administration by President Obama when he stepped into the Oval Office in January 2009.
But there has been a drop in gains over 2014-2016. In those three years, the average monthly jobs gain was 250,000, 226,000, and 187,000, respectively. For the first half of this year, the average monthly gain has been 180,000. Nonetheless, what had appeared to be a significant deceleration in hiring in March, April and May turns out mostly to have been statistical noise.
In addition to U3, the bureau tallies unemployment by looking at other cohorts of the populace. U6, the most inclusive measure of “labor underutilitization,” covers both unemployment and underemployment. Many economists believe U6 provides a better look at job health than U3, but that is not the assessment everyone makes. U6 rose 0.2 point in June to 8.6 percent. One component of the U6 tally consists of part-time workers who want—but cannot find—full-time positions. More than 5 million Americans who would like full-time work only have been able to get part-time positions.
Between February 2008 and December 2009, the Great Recession caused a net loss of 8.8 million jobs. Since then, the economy has made a net gain of 12.1 million new jobs.
Wages rose, but only marginally. Since last June, they’ve gone up 63 cents an hour, a 2.5 percent year-over-year increase against an annual inflation rate of 1.9 percent. In other words, workers are just getting by judged by this metric.
Both full-time and part-time positions are included in the bureau’s surveys. A person who has worked a single hour a week during the survey period is counted as employed. The survey period ends around the 12th of each month, so the June report released today is actually a report for the last half of May and the first half of June, not June alone.
The civilian workforce rose in June by 361,000 after falling by 429,000 in May. The labor force participation rate rose to 62.8 percent, and the employment-population ratio rose 0.1 point to 60.1 percent.
Inflation-adjusted median household income has finally returned to pre-Great Recession levels this year, but the average worker is still treading water economically. People in the upper tiers of the U.S. economy have gotten almost all the financial gains during the recovery. Donald Trump and other Republicans are eager to make that inequality worse.
Unemployment rates differ by race and sex. For U3: Adult men: 4.0 percent; Adult women: 4.0 percent; Whites: 3.8 percent; Blacks: 7.1 percent; Asians: 3.6 percent; Hispanics: 4.8 percent; American Indians: (not counted monthly); Teenagers: 13.3 percent; (for teenagers of color, the unemployment rate is usually much higher.)
The bureau calculates the net gain (or loss) in jobs each month via the Current Employment Survey of 147,000 business establishments and government agencies. As noted above, however, the unemployment rate is based on a different survey—the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households. You can read details here of how the BLS makes its calculations and why it seasonally adjusts the numbers.
The bureau has established a "90 percent confidence level" of plus or minus 120,000 jobs. That means the "real" number of new jobs created in June was not 222,000 but rather ranged between a gain of 102,000 and a gain of 342,000. The way the BLS puts it: “These figures do not mean that the sample results are off by these magnitudes, but rather that there is about a 90-percent chance that the true over-the-month change lies within this interval.”
The bureau also measures the employment-population ratio for people age 25 to 54 each month. Individuals in this age group are the most likely of any workers to be employed, and their situation is viewed as key indicator of America’s overall economic health. Eighteen years ago, this age group reached its highest employment-population ratio—84.6 percent. It hit its lowest point—74.8 percent—in November 2010. Since then, it’s been slowly rising. In June it rose 0.1 point to 78.5 percent.
Here are some other details from the report:
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 4 cents an hour to $22.03 in June.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls rose in June to 34.5 hours.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose 4 cents an hour in June to $26.25.
• The manufacturing work week in June rose 0.1 hour to 40.8 hours.
June Job Gains and Losses for selected categories:
- Professional services: 35,000
- Temporary help services: 13,400
- Transportation & warehousing: 2,400
- Financial activities: 17,000
- Leisure & hospitality: 36,000
- Information: -4,000
- Education and health services: 45,000
- Health care & social assistance: 59,100
- Retail trade: 8,100
- Construction: 16,000
- Manufacturing: 1,000
- Mining and Logging: 8,000
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in the previous 10 years compared with this June’s gain of 222,000.
June 2007: 75,000
June 2008: -162,000
June 2009: -471,000
June 2010: -137,000
June 2011: 225,000
June 2012: 76,000
June 2013: 162,000
June 2014: 304,000
June 2015: 206,000
June 2016: 297,000