Kudos to you if you were alert enough to remember that the official Jobs Report for June would come out today because of tomorrow’s federal holiday.
The top-line numbers, which pretty much matched expectations, were pretty good: 223,000 net new jobs, and the official unemployment rate dropping to 5.3%. There was also an encouraging reduction of 381,000 in the number of long-term unemployed. Monthly net job gains are now averaging 250,000 over the last year.
On the other hand, the labor participation rate actually dropped, and the number of “discouraged workers” was unchanged. And there were downward revisions totaling 60,000 in the net new jobs for April and May.
The slow-but-steady growth narrative continues, but we’ll have to see how the spin goes and more importantly, how the Fed reacts. Considering the jitters in Europe right now, though, a meh month could be a whole lot worse.
UPDATE: Austan Goolsbee–remember him?–makes an important point about the labor force participation rate:
to reiterate again: w/baby boom retiring, labor force participation rate will keep setting “lowest LFP since …” records for next 12+ yrs
— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) July 2, 2015
