Support our non-partisan non-profit newsroom 💜 Donate now

Weekly Wrap: July’s unemployment report

Tess Vigeland Aug 3, 2012
HTML EMBED:
COPY
A man waits to see a perspective employer at a job fair on August 2, 2012 in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Weekly Wrap: July’s unemployment report

Tess Vigeland Aug 3, 2012
A man waits to see a perspective employer at a job fair on August 2, 2012 in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Marketplace’s New York Bureau chief Heidi Moore and John Carney from CNBC dissect this week’s headlines on Wall Street and beyond.

On the July jobs report:

Heidi Moore: It’s certainly better news, right? Because we’ve seen so many months of the jobs news getting worse and worse, so this reverses that trend. And it also fits in with other good economic data we’ve seen, like housing prices seem to have hit a bottom and consumer confidence is up for reasons that we cannot even fathom. So all of those things tie together to add at least one month of optimism but I think we should wait a few months to get a real read.

John Carney: I think it’s a very, very good sign for the economy. I actually think with unemployment ticked up — but it’s basically flat; it was an insignificant change — getting these kinds of jobs despite all the fears we’ve has about Europe and all the fears about perhaps we’re sliding into another recession, may be an indicator that the economy is recovering on a self-sustaining basis. Remember, this isn’t being driven by government growth or spending or anything like this. It looks like we’re having an actual, real, self-sustaining economic growth emerging.

For more analysis, listen to the full story.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.