The unemployment rate remained unchanged from the month before at 4.9 percent.
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Gains were strongest in professional and business services, with 70,000 new jobs added, and in health care, where 43,000 new jobs were added.
What’s more, over the past year the labor market has averaged just over 200,000 in monthly job gains.
You may remember that job growth was remarkably weak in May: the BLS has revised that number, for the second time, to 24,000. Bank of America rose 55 cents, or 3.8 percent, to $15.03 and Citigroup added $1.40, or 3.2 percent, to $45.25.
The Federal Reserve recently signalled its intention to increase interest rates this year as “near-term risks” such as slowing employment receded.
Bullion has extended gains this quarter after posting the best first half in more than four decades, helped by low interest rates and pledges by central banks to do more to boost growth.
Employment in mining continued to fall, losing 6,000 positions from the prior month and putting the industry down 220,000 jobs since a peak hit in September 2014.
The new numbers were also accompanied by upward revisions for the months of May and June in a sign that the job markets were healthier than previously thought. Wages grew 2.6% compared to 2.2% the same time a year ago.
The problem is that outside the job market, things are looking gloomy.
Among other positives in the report, the average work week picked up to 34.5 hours from 34.4 hours and 17,000 temporary workers were added.
“The Fed is likely to take encouragement from this jobs report as even a 180,000 print will still be consistent with further progress in absorbing labor market slack”, said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in NY.
After a policy meeting last month, the Fed described the labor market as having “strengthened” and that the job market measures pointed to some “increase in labor utilization”.
And Barclays Economist Jesse Hurwitz wrote in a note to clients, “With job gains back near the cycle average of 200k, we now see lower recession risk for the USA over the next 12 months”.
Employers there added 255,000 thousand people to their payrolls (excluding agriculture) in July. Inventories have declined in 13 of the last 14 months.
Financial services added 18,000 and construction 14,000.
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The labor force participation rate rose one-tenth of a percent, to 62.8 percent from 62.7 percent in June, growing by another 407,000 people and reaching 159,287,000. Companies also kept hiring in spite of weak job growth in the first half of this year, including disappointing job gains in April and May.
