Resilient, durable, and solid are just a few of the adjectives that highlight the June Jobs report released by the US Labor Dept, on Friday, but much like the three previous months, nothing significant has changed, and even with the 209,000 non farm jobs gained, the news of a slight reduction in the unemployment rate from 3.7 to 3.6 might give a glimmer of hope for a reduction in inflation, it is not enough, and it is widely anticipated that at its July meeting the Federal Reserve will give yet another rate increase.
The lessening of the unemployment rate got mixed reviews from some economists and observers but it was mixed at best. For some, the job losses were notable for the reduction in retail and tech services, a trend that we have seen before. But, equally concerning was that wages increased slightly to 4.4 percent but gave only a slight edge ahead of the inflation rate, currently at 4 percent.
Those sleepless nights for Fed Chair Jerome Powell will continue as he predicted that it was going to be a long slog to bring prices down to the 2 percent inflation that is the mandate of the Reserve.
As he noted in June, “there is a path to setting inflation back down to 2 percent without having to see the kind of sharp downturn and large losses in employment.”
Those early predictions of a soft recessionary landing that Powell noted along with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, from 14 months ago, may yet come to pass.
A big surprise was that while factories fell flat, new home sales rose despite high interest rates and for a 30 year fixed rate rising from 6.39 to 6.57, and for new homes, there was a gain of 23,000 jobs in construction alone, further emphasizing the conundrum that is the US economy.
There was some solid footing in the report, those of prime working years, ages 25 t0 54 shot up to its highest level since May of 2002, at 80.9 percent.
The US, like most of Western Europe, is facing the challenges left from the covid pandemic, and the increase in service costs has increased in areas such as airline travel, (on June 30th, TSA screened 2,884,783 passengers) as well as the cost of dining out, but with higher wages exceeding inflation, the increase is a gut punch for the former, and a pinch for the latter; and, especially for an industry that is in recovery from the decimation of the pandemic and lockdowns. But, Americans seem unabated in their quest for travel and restaurant meals.
Another surprise was that those of prime working ages, 25 to 54, increased 75.3 percent in June, the highest in the US since 1948. And, leading the pack were women hit 77.8 percent, with Black women at 60 percent.
While there are still less child care workers, employees, according to an NPR report, have bargaining power, and employers are willing to be flexible between hours worked to accommodate family life and remote working, for those that can.
CNN reports that this was “the third consecutive month that the participation rate for women between the ages of 25 and 54 has set a record high.”
Traditional roles for working women increased, they added, and included healthcare at a fast clip, as well as educational gains, and “greater inroads into traditionally male dominated fields such as construction, agriculture, and repair and maintenance.”
The bad news? Women are still making less than men, “about 82 cents for every dollar a man earned, according to a Pew Research Center report released in March.”
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