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The seasonally adjusted net gain of jobs in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday, was 209,000. Of those, 172,000 were created in the private sector, 37,000 in the public sector, as determined by analysis of the Current Employment Survey of 147,000 business establishments. A consensus of experts in Bloomberg’s survey of experts earlier this week had concluded there would be a gain of 178,000 new jobs in July.
Once again, which has been the case for most of the past eight years since the recovery from the Great Recession officially began, wages climbed only a smidgen. Compared with last July, they were up 9 cents an hour, a 2.5 percent year-over-year rise against an annual inflation rate of 1.6 percent. For the average worker, the wage gain has amounted to barely treading water.
As it does in every monthly report, the bureau revised its counts for the previous two months based on more complete information available than when its numbers were first released. The new calculations raised the tally for June from 222,000 to 231,000, and for May lowered it from 152,000 to 145,000. This latest BLS count makes July the 82nd consecutive month of overall job growth.
The bureau calculates the unemployment rate from another study, the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households. The headline rate, the most commonly reported upon—which the bureau labels U3—came in at 4.3 percent, the lowest rate in 16 years. The lowest the rate has been in the past quarter-century was 3.8 percent in April 2000.
Pr*sident Donald Trump, who during the campaign last year had frequently called the BLS numbers bogus.
But, as he has done all year, Trump tweeted the success of his efforts: “Excellent Jobs Numbers just released—and I have only just begun. Many job stifling regulations continue to fall. Movement back to USA!”
Most economists say that, whatever a president’s impact on job creation, it doesn’t begin until nine months to a year after he or she takes office. Trump has promised economic growth of 3 percent, but it’s clocked in so far this year at 1.9 percent.
Unemployment rates differ by race and sex. For U3: Adult men: 4.0 percent; Adult women: 4.0 percent; Whites: 3.8 percent; Blacks: 7.4 percent; Asians: 3.8 percent; Hispanics: 5.1 percent; American Indians: (not counted monthly); Teenagers: 13.2 percent; (for teenagers of color, the unemployment rate is usually much higher.)
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 remained unchanged in July at 8.6 percent.
Its pre-recession low was 8 percent in March 2007, but it was lower than that earlier in the 2000s, reaching 6.9 percent in mid-2001. One key 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. That is quite high for this late in an economic recovery.
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 12.3 million new jobs.
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 July report released this morning actually covers the last half of June and the first half of July, not July alone.
The civilian workforce rose in July by 349,000 after rising by 361,000 in June and falling by 429,000 in May. The labor force participation rate rose to 62.9 percent, and the employment-population ratio rose to 60.2 percent.
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 July was not 209,000 but rather ranged between a gain of 89,000 and a gain of 329,000. 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.”
Each month, the bureau also measures the employment-population ratio for people age 25 to 54. In the aggregate, they are the most likely of any age group to be employed. As such their situation is viewed as a key indicator of America’s overall economic health. Eighteen years ago, this age group reached its highest employment-population ratio—81.8 percent. It hit its lowest point—74.8 percent—in November 2010. Since then, it’s been slowly rising. In July it rose 0.2 point to 78.7 percent, the best showing since September 2008.
Here are some other details from the report:
Hours & Wages:
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 6 cents an hour to $22.10 in July.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls remain unchanged in July at 34.5 hours.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose 9 cents an hour in July to $26.36.
• The manufacturing work week in July was 40.9 hours.
June Job Gains and Losses for selected categories:
- Professional services: 49,000
- Temporary help services: 14,700
- Transportation & warehousing: 900
- Financial activities: 6,000
- Leisure & hospitality: 62,000
- Information: 4,000
- Education and health services: 54,000
- Health care & social assistance: 45,000
- Retail trade: 900
- Construction: 6,000
- Manufacturing: 16,000
- Mining and Logging: 22,000
July 2007: -34,000
July 2008: -213,000
July 2009: -329,000
July 2010: -68,000
July 2011: 69,000
July 2012: 143,000
July 2013: 122,000
July 2014: 202,000
July 2015: 254,000
July 2016: 291,000
Gov't reports 209,000 new jobs created in July; jobless rate at 4.3%; Trump claims credit
