Has an ill wind begun to blow through the American economy? Or did the job market just have a one-month hiccup?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered a big miss on expectations in its July employment report this morning. Economists expected job creation numbers to drift downward a bit, perhaps to a still-sufficient maintenance level of 185,000. Instead, job creation fell to 114,000 in July and unemployment ticked up to 4.3%. And the slide looks even more significant when reviewed against the 2023 data:
The unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in July, and nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 114,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in health care, in construction, and in transportation and warehousing, while information lost jobs. …
The unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 4.3 percent in July, and the number of…
