June jobs report may be lackluster
Jeff Horwich: Here in the U.S. we get the latest employment report from the U.S. Labor Department.
Marketplace’s Mitchell Hartman has a preview.
Mitchell Hartman: At the beginning of this year, job growth was looking so sweet, with well over 225,000 jobs being added every month. Then, the spring doldrums hit. We’ve been averaging just 96,000 per month since March.
And June isn’t expected to be any better, says Paul Dales at Capital Economics.
Paul Dales: You really need employment gains per month of around 150,000 at the moment. That’s simply so that new people coming into the workforce can get a job and some extra people as well. So a gain of 100,000 to 125,000 will probably leave the unemployment rate at its current rate of around 8.2 percent.
And, those of us who are working? Our paychecks aren’t getting any fatter after inflation, says Madeline Schnapp at the investment research firm TrimTabs.
Madeline Schnapp: So we’re really looking at flat to negative wage growth — which is, obviously, not good for the economy.
That’s keeping down consumer spending and confidence. Combined with a mediocre jobs report, it might push the Federal Reserve to inject more money into the economy to try and spur job growth.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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