The official unemployment rate is defined as “total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force”, but doesn’t include a number of situations in which workers may find themselves. Trimmed mean inflation looks to remain fairly steady over the coming four quarters.
Advertisement
Armen is a research analyst in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Coal mining industry lost more than 13,000 jobs over the past 12 months.
After the release of the employment data and an hour before the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average – which has declined nine of the past 11 sessions since hitting a record high – was up about 80 points, or 0.5%, after being up about 24 points before the announcement. The increase in retail jobs was relatively subdued, but there was a robust increase of 38,000 in government jobs for the month.
In separate report, global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas said employers in the USA announced plans to shed 45,346 workers from their payrolls in July, a 19 percent increase from June.
Virtually no one is expecting the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at its September meeting.
Employment gains for June and May, meanwhile, were revised up by a combined 18,000.
Business and professional firms led the way, adding 70,000 jobs.
The US economy added 255,000 jobs in July, many more than expected, while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9%.
“Claims remain low, albeit not quite as low as they were a couple of weeks ago, but those lower readings likely reflected seasonal adjustment issues relating to annual plant shutdowns in the auto industry”, according to Jim O’Sullivan, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics.
Advertisement
There was also better news on wage rises – with salaries growing at a rate of 2.6%. After hiking short-term rates off zero in December, its first rate increase in almost a decade, the Fed has held off on raising borrowing costs so far in 2016, citing global economic uncertainties, the fallout from the Brexit vote and a growth slowdown in the U.S.in the first three months of the year. The latest economic data has shown a broad deceleration in economic output, falling business investment, healthy consumer spending, continued trouble in the energy sector and signs manufacturers have stabilized after a rocky winter. Payroll gains are also forecast for the construction sector after three consecutive months of weakness.
