U.S. Labor Market Weaker Than Previously Reported

Previous estimates of job growth in the U.S. were grossly overestimated. The U.S. labor market added just 19,000 jobs in May and 14,000 jobs in June, with those gains revised down by a larger than normal revision, a combined 258,000 jobs. In July, employers added 73,000 workers to payrolls, according to a survey of businesses by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While those additions were up from the previous two months, that gain came in below economists’ expectations of roughly 100,000 to 115,000 jobs. Gains from May through July amounted to just 106,000 jobs, the weakest performance during that three-month period since the Great Recession. In July, job gains were most pronounced in the Education/Health Services sector (+79,000 jobs), followed by Financial Activities (+15,000 jobs) and Trade/Transportation/Utilities (+11,000 jobs). Other major industries to add jobs during the month were Leisure/Hospitality Services (+5,000 jobs), Construction (+2,000 jobs) and Other Services (+2,000 jobs). Notable job losses were seen in Professional/Business Services (-14,000 jobs) and Manufacturing (-11,000 jobs). Job losses were also seen in the Government sector (-10,000 jobs), with the bulk of that net loss attributed to continued declines in Federal Government positions (-12,000 jobs). Meanwhile, the unemployment rate (U3 or headline unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted, and is a survey of households) has registered in the narrow range of 4% to 4.2% over the past 15 months and came in at 4.2% in July. That was up from 4.1% in June and matched expectations.  

This post is part of a series analyzing employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For more on this data, read previous posts on Job Growth.