CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n The US job market continues to chug along despite heightened uncertainty about the economy and how President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs could shake out.\n <\/p>\n
\n The economy added a stronger-than-expected 147,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% from 4.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday.\n <\/p>\n
\n Last month\u2019s gains, which landed above expectations for 117,500 jobs to be added, marked a slight increase from May\u2019s total, which was revised up slightly (5,000 jobs) to 144,000. April\u2019s job gains were revised higher by 11,000 jobs, for a net gain of 158,000.\n <\/p>\n
\n Those revisions and Thursday\u2019s data bring the three-month average job growth to 150,000.\n <\/p>\n
\n However, despite the continuation of fairly solid monthly employment gains, Thursday\u2019s jobs report once again showed some fissures within the labor market.\n <\/p>\n
\n Notably, job growth is not widespread. The vast majority of the month\u2019s gains were in health care (+58,600 jobs), leisure and hospitality (+20,000 jobs), and state and local government (+80,000 jobs*). [*The sharp increase here is likely \u201cartificial,\u201d economists for Pantheon Economics cautioned. More on that below]\n <\/p>\n
\n And when stripping out the public sector gains (the +80,000 was offset slightly by a loss of 7,000 jobs federally), US private sector businesses added 74,000 jobs in June, the smallest monthly gain since October 2024.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe tariff tax hike, restrictive monetary policy and worries about a further intensification of the trade war are weighing heavily on labor demand,\u201d Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in an investor note on Thursday. \u201cPrivate payrolls excluding healthcare and education rose by just 23,000, well below the 50,000 average pace in the previous 12 months. Fundamentally, then, this is a weak report.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Tombs noted that the mathematical adjustments made by the BLS to smooth out seasonal fluctuations (think: construction employment surging in the spring and retail ramping up hiring in advance of Christmas) may have made the overall numbers look a little more rosy. Education jobs typically fall in the summertime; however, the decrease was not as sharp this year, which the seasonal adjustment factor relayed as a strong gain.\n <\/p>\n
\n The labor force participation rate ticked down, while the unemployment rate for Black workers surged by 0.8 percentage points to 6.8%, its highest rate since January 2022.\n <\/p>\n
\n The household survey, one of two that feed in to the monthly jobs report, often can have volatile monthly swings; however, rising unemployment levels for Black workers has in the past served as an indicator of economic weakness.\n <\/p>\n
\n Stocks opened higher after the jobs report. The Dow rose 96 points, or 0.22%. The broader S&P 500 rose 0.4% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.6%.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump has introduced a bevy of sweeping policies that have the potential to impact the economy. However, questions around how those actions will shake out \u2014 particularly the size and scope of tariffs \u2014 have heightened uncertainty and hampered hiring activity, to some extent.\n <\/p>\n
\n For several months running, the labor market has been in a state of low churn: Hiring activity is at near 10-year lows and workers aren\u2019t feeling confident enough to quit; however, employers, for the most part, are holding on to the workers they have.\n <\/p>\n
\n Layoff activity hasn\u2019t accelerated recently, according to a variety of indicators, including weekly jobless claims data.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Thursday, the latest batch of claims data showed that first-time filings for unemployment insurance \u2014 considered a proxy for layoffs \u2014 decreased to 233,000 for the week ended June 28 from 237,000 the week before, according to a separate report released by the Department of Labor.\n <\/p>\n
\n While first-time claims aren\u2019t steadily on the rise, people appear to be having a harder time finding work when they\u2019re unemployed.\n <\/p>\n
\n Continuing claims, which are filed by people who have received jobless benefits for at least one week, have been butting up against three-and-a-half-year highs.\n <\/p>\n
\n That was the case during the week that ended June 21 (the continuing claims data runs at a lag): The number of continuing claims was unchanged at 1.964 million.\n <\/p>\n
\n This story is developing and will be updated.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 The US job market continues to chug along despite heightened uncertainty about the economy and how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-234901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114789726517351242","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}