Jobs

Government to the Jobs Rescue

7/9/24
from The Wall Street Journal,
7/5/24:

Trades that rely on federal spending are creating most new jobs.

The Labor Department’s jobs report on Friday showed employers in June continued to hire at a healthy rate. So why do many Americans worry about the labor market? Look under the hood, and most new jobs being created in recent months are in trades that rely on government spending. Employers added 206,000 jobs in June, though the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 4.1% owing to an increase in the labor force. The good news is that labor force participation among prime working-age Americans is the highest in more than 20 years. On the other hand, the jobs market appears to be slowing. New jobs were revised down by a combined 111,000 for May and April. Job growth has averaged about 177,000 over the past three months, compared to 220,000 for the past year. Nearly three-quarters of the net new jobs in June were in government, healthcare and social assistance. These industries also made up roughly half of the new jobs in May and more than 90% in April. Construction accounted for a large share of the rest. Nurses, social workers and plumbers are still in high demand, but less so others. Manufacturing employment has been flat since November.

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