That matches June’s showing, the best in eight years.
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Investors appeared pleased by the data, with the Dow Jones industrial average surging about 160 points – almost 1 percent – in midmorning trading.
Businesses added 217,000 jobs, led by professional and business services, health care and finance. Although the USA has gained over 1 million jobs so far this year, it had already added 1.3 million positions by this time last year.
This gain comes after the construction sector lost a combined 27,000 jobs from April to June. With these revisions, total nonfarm employment gains during the two-month period were 18,000 greater than previously reported. Average hourly earnings have increased 2.6 percent over the course of the year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The US central bank hiked interest rates in December for the first time in almost a decade, but has held them steady since amid concerns over persistently low inflation. The strong employment readings also come as the US heads toward the presidential election, which could give Democrat Hillary Clinton a positive talking point.
June’s robust hiring, which followed a mere 11,000 gain in May, was viewed as unsustainable given that the economic growth in the last three quarters averaged a 1.0 percent annualized rate.
She noted while the Fed sees little cost of waiting until December to hike rates thanks to a lack of significant inflationary pressure and a firm dollar, the central bank could move to raise rates at either its November or December meeting. Some economists pointed to odd weather patterns, a listless global economy and market turbulence early this year.
The Commerce Department said last month that economic activity had grown by a paltry 1.2 per cent in the second quarter – data at odds with Friday’s rosier jobs report.
That level of job growth would be in line with this year’s average monthly gains, which remain below last year’s healthy pace of about 230,000. 5, the Labor Department issues its jobs report for July. The professional and technical services added 37,400, well above its average pace of 23,800 over the previous year. That’s a healthy improvement but still a slightly slower pace than past year, when it had gained about 1.6 million jobs by this point. The numbers for July came in at 255,000 new jobs, which gives us two months in a row of more than 250,000 new jobs.
The economy has added 13.5 million jobs since employment bottomed out in December 2009.
But energy companies continued to lay off workers, chopping 7,000 jobs.
The estimate of workers who want full-timejobs but have had to settle for less or were too discouraged to keep looking was figured at 9.7 percent in July.
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Behind the good news of the latest jobs numbers, then, is a sobering lesson: America’s future prosperity will depend less on the Fed and more on the ability of the next president to work with Congress and the states. Gross domestic product growth probably will pick up to a 2 percent rate by year-end, according to Bloomberg survey data.
