Modest Employment Growth
The June employment report can be found here. Payroll employment grew by 146 thousand. With a similar estimated increase per the Household Survey, employment growth matched population growth with the employment to population ratio remaining at 62.7%.
Now you may have heard that the unemployment rate fell from 5.1% to 5.0% and wondered if that means that the labor force participation rate fell from 66.1% to 66.0%. If so, you would have been exactly right.
Alas – the labor market weakness continues. Hopefully, we will see faster employment growth for the rest of the year – even though I see no reason to predict as much.