By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert
The BLS announced that payroll employment increased 57,000, and has been ratcheting down since March. The Dow Jones consensus forecast was 115,000. In addition, there were downward revisions over the past two months totaling 74,000. Employment in health care and social assistance grew 46,000. The largest decline came from leisure and hospitality, falling
Average hours of work remained at 34.3 for the third consecutive month. Hourly earnings rose from $37.54 to $37.64. With the recent uptick in inflation real wages have declined after several years of real wage growth.
The household survey revealed a large decline in employment, down 507,000; and the number unemployed also fell by 213,000, leading to a decline in the labor force participation rate, 61.8% to 61.5%. Taken together, these changes resulted in the unemployment rate moving down from 4.30% to 4.19%.
Another labor market indicator, the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey revealed no change in the number of job openings and hires, once again leading to more job openings than unemployed persons.
