Job growth expected, but not in all sectors
JEREMY HOBSON: In just about 40 minutes, we’ll get the official jobs report from the government for the month of June. It’ll tell us how many jobs were created last month and what the new unemployment rate is. Estimates are the economy added north of 100,000 jobs in June.
But the growth isn’t happening everywhere, as Marketplace’s Mitchell Hartman reports.
MITCHELL HARTMAN: All spring, the economy has been performing dismally when it comes to creating jobs. But in the past few weeks, some of the economic news has turned around — signs of manufacturing and retail rebounding. The euphoria’s not universal, though.
LAWRENCE MISHEL: I don’t think anyone is expecting us to be creating jobs at the pace that we really need.
Lawrence Mishel at the Economic Policy Institute says even at the optimistic end of the current forecasts, it’s not enough job creation to reverse years of recession.
MISHEL: So any employment number that comes in less than 200,000 is definitely disappointing and we need to be producing at least 300,000 jobs a month to move the unemployment rate down at a rapid pace.
Economists expect health care to keep hiring workers. But with housing in a prolonged slump, construction jobs aren’t coming back. And today’s report is likely to show state and local government continued laying off teachers, firefighters, and others, amid budget cuts.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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