Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported jobs data for June 2017. Payroll employment was higher than expected at 222,000 with a positive revision of 47,000 jobs for the two previous months.
“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 222,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased
in health care, social assistance, financial activities, and mining.”
For 2017 I expected 140K-170K monthly job prints. With this report, along with the positive revisions, we are running at 180,000 jobs, year to date. The three month average is about 194,000. With all the talk of car sales falling, retail Armageddon and the Fed raising rates, 2017 looks solid in terms of job gains. The U6 unemployment rate did rise to 8.6% from 8.4% but we are still trending toward that low base floor of 8% on the U6 unemployment rate.
From Doug Short :
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/07/07/june-jobs-report-222k-new-jobs-added-surprises-forecast
As always, the longest job expansion continues;
81… As in 81 consecutive months of jobs growth, by far the longest streak in history. #payrolls
From the job sector breakdown, we can see the retail trade job loss has stopped for now. 2017 has seen an uptick in mining and logging jobs and that has soften the blow from the retail trade job losses we have seen since October of 2016.
From BLS:
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/employment-by-industry-monthly-changes.htm
As always, education matters .
The 2017 employment picture is looking roughly as I predicted. Wages are trending flat for the most part and headline inflation and core inflation are now falling, on a year over year basis. It will be interesting to see if we do get higher BLS wage inflation with CPI and PCE inflation falling now, year over year. We do have low unemployment claims and high job openings but the quit ratio has been flat for some time now.
From Doug Short
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/06/30/two-measures-of-inflation-and-fed-policy
I am happy to report that I will be speaking on U.S. economics and other topics in a few days at the National Association of Women in Real Estate Businesses Nexus Conference.
Logan Mohtashami is a financial writer and blogger covering the U.S. economy with a specialization in the housing market. Logan Mohtashami is a senior loan officer at AMC Lending Group, which has been providing mortgage services for California residents since 1987. Logan also tracks all economic data daily on his own facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Logan.Mohtashami