U.S. Economy Adds 528,00 Jobs in July, Unemployment Falls to 3.5%John Carney 5 Aug 2022
What if we had a recession and everyone still had a job?
The U.S. economy added 528,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, the Department of Labor said Friday.
Economists had expected the economy to add 258,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 3.6 percent. The range of forecasts by economists surveyed by Econoday was between a gain of 2200,000 to 300,000.
The prior month’s already very high jobs figure of 372,000 was revised up to 398,000. The jobs market has now fully recovered from the pandemic job losses, with both the unemployment rate and total payrolls at their February 2020 prepandemic levels.
On average, the economy has added around 450,000 jobs per month in 2022, an extremely high rate of payroll building. This is even more extraordinary given the very low rate of unemployment and the fact that the U.S. economy contracted in both the first and second quarters of this year.
Average hourly earnings for all employees in the private sector rose by 15 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $32.27. The June wage gain was revised up from a 0.3 percent gain to a 0.4 percent gain. Over the past year, average hourly earnings have increased by 5.2 percent. June’s gain was revised up to 5.2 percent from 5.1 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 11 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $27.57. The wage gains were higher than expected.
The July figures and the upward revisions to June’s gains are likely to spark concerns over inflation persisting at very high levels. Particularly with economic output contracting, adding demand in the form of additional workers and higher wages is likely to push prices up.
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/08/05/us-added-jobs-july/
