Economy
July 8, 2017
U.S. Jobs Report Exceeds Expectations
Written by Tim Triplett
The U.S. employment situation continues to be good. Net job creation in June, including revisions for April and May, was 269,000, and the latest number of job openings was the highest on record.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) net job creation report released on Friday exceeded economists’ expectations and was another example of why we should not be fixated on a single month’s result. On the face of it, March was terrible at only 50,000 more people employed than in February. In the data released on Friday, April was revised up by 33,000 to 207,000 and May was revised up by 14,000 to 152,000. The preliminary June result was 222,000 jobs created. Clearly the single month number is useless in its ability to measure the trend. The average monthly increase in the 12 months of July 2016 through June of 2017 was 187,000. Coincidentally, private employment increased 187,000 in June and government gained 35,000. The unemployment rate increased from 4.3 percent in May, which was the lowest since February 2001, to 4.4 percent in June.
