U.S. Economy Adds 223,000 Jobs; Unemployment at 5.3%
*The unemployment numbers are out a few days earlier than usual this month due to the Fourth of July holiday. [tweet_dis]The Bureaus of Labor Statistics reports that the Latino unemployment rate fell slightly in June to 6.6 percent[/tweet_dis], the May number was 6.7. [tweet_dis]Overall, there were 1.7 million unemployed Latinos in June, a drop of 34,000 from May[/tweet_dis]. There were 1.3 million Latinos who remain on the labor market sidelines. VL
By Nelson D. Schwartz, The New York Times
Good, but hardly great.
The economy added a healthy 223,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Thursday, but other indicators, showing wages growing slowly and jobless Americans remaining on the sidelines, painted a grayer picture.
[pullquote][tweet_dis]… while the unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent, the lowest in seven years, that was driven largely by an exodus of people from the work force.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]Indeed, while the unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent, the lowest in seven years, that was driven largely by an exodus of people from the work force, rather than more Americans finding work. Moreover, the strong job gains for April and May, which had led many analysts to predict that the economy was picking up steam, were revised downward by 60,000 jobs.
Despite the drop in the unemployment rate, from 5.5 percent in May, average hourly earnings stayed flat, disappointing hopes that wages were finally increasing for many workers and suggesting that the labor market still has plenty of slack.
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[Photo by levin.house.gov]
