According to the BLS Employment Survey, the U.S. economy added another 147 thousand jobs in June — a very respectable number. Although the private sector saw a weak employment increase of 74 thousand.
The BLS noted gains in the government sector (gaining 73 thousand jobs, despite a reduction of 7 thousand at the Federal level) and health care (up 39 thousand jobs).
Average hours of work fell to 34.2 from 34.3 and has been oscillating between the two for several months.
From the Household Survey in the same BLS release, the unemployment rate dipped from 4.24% in May to 4.12% in June.
One dark spot in the employment outlook is that continuing unemployment insurance claims have risen in June. This increase may reflect increased difficulty of the unemployed to find suitable jobs.
JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) allows for a deeper dive into the data; this data was released on July 1 and includes data for May but not June. It continues to be the case that there are more available jobs than folks classified as “unemployed” (actively seeking a job). Of course, aggregate measures like these say nothing about the match between skills needed for open jobs, and the skills of the unemployed.
As the job openings rate has fallen since 2022, so has the hiring rate and the quit rate. Since JOLTS is a relatively new survey, it covers a span of time with very few complete business cycles. Consequently, it’s difficult to say what typcally happends to the JOLTS rates at the oneset of a recession. That said, around a recession as the labor market tightens we would expect to see a fall in the quit, openings and hiring rates, and a rise in the layoff rate. Thus far in 2025, it is hard to see any such changes.
While there were some spots of concern, the labor market shows little signs of weakening. Indeed the strength of the June report gives amunition to those on the FOMC advocating for no action at its July meeting.
