Business
New Jobs in US Sits Only at 187,000 in July as Wage Growth Picks Up
The Department of Labor revealed on Friday that new jobs in the US were only sitting at 187,000 in July, which was fewer than anticipated.
Nonetheless, the jobless rate decreased to 3.5 percent.
According to the Labor Department's preliminary estimate for June, the economy added 209,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate was 3.6 percent. On Friday, the June employment figure was revised downward to 185,000.
For the month, the average hourly wage increased by 0.4 percent, somewhat more than anticipated. The average hourly wage has increased by 4.4 percent since last year.
However, the average number of hours worked decreased to 34.3, somewhat countering this. Since 2020, this is the lowest. Working fewer hours is sometimes used as a leading sign of the labor market's diminishing demand for labor.
At 62.6 percent, the labor force participation rate remained constant.
According to economist predictions in the Econoday survey, the economy would create about 200,000 jobs. The range of predictions was between 150,000 and 300,000. The large range shows that there is a lot of ambiguity regarding the health of the labor market.
The Labor Department reported earlier this week that job openings totaled 9.6 million on the last day of June, exactly matching the downwardly revised figure for the end of May. Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased little last week from 221,000 to 227,000, numbers low enough to imply that labor demand is still quite robust.
The monthly jobs data had been consistently better than anticipated up until last month when they came in lower than anticipated. In spite of the Federal Reserve's swift interest rate increases, the labor market has demonstrated an unexpected degree of resilience.
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