Here is the June 2013 employment situation report from the BLS: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
Key Highlights:
- The unemployment remained unchanged at 7.6%. Non-farm employers added 195,000 new jobs.
- The number of unemployed persons remained unchanged at 11.8 million in June.
- The civilian labor force participation rate increased slightly from 63.4% in May to 63.5% in June.
- The "not in labor force" count (those who have no job and have stopped looking for work) increased slightly from 89,705,000 in May to 89,717,000 in June.
- The number of persons employed for part-time economic reasons (those that are considered part-time involuntary workers) remained flat at increased by 322,000 from 7,900,000 in May to 8,200,000 in June.
- Average hourly earnings rose by 10 cents. The 12-month average for hourly earnings have risen at a 2.2% yearly rate.
- April's jobs created numbers were revised from 149,000 to 199,000, while May's jobs created numbers were revised upward from 175,000 to 195,000.
My quick take:
Overall, this is a decent jobs report, though nothing to sound the trumpets over. In my opinion, the best news from this is the revision of April's and May's jobs numbers. They both inched closer to the 200k new jobs per month number. While an improvement, these barely account for the population addition our country experiences every month. We need steady job growth of around 300-350k jobs per month, steadily, to bring the unemployment rate down significantly. The biggest negative, in my opinion, is the increase in persons employed for part-time reasons. This jumped heavily, and can only be looked at in a negative way. The summer employment period marks when new graduates hit the job market, and if the majority of jobs being taken are in the part-time job sectors, this isn't good news for many. Overall, this isn't a terrible jobs report, but it certainly isn't spectacular.
What's your take? Please share your thoughts below.
