US Wage Growth Stalled, 2.4-M More Good Jobs Needed For Full Employment
$SLB, $HAL, $USO, $UGA
NFPs increased 215,000 last month as a pickup in construction and manufacturing jobs offset further declines in the mining sector, the US Labor Department said Friday. It missed the consensus call at 235,000
The unemployment rate held at a 7-yr low of 5.3%, against the participation rate that is at a 40 yr low, the headline is very misleading.
Payrolls data for May and June were revised to show 14,000 more jobs created than previously reported. In addition, the average workweek increased to 34.6 hours, the highest since February, from 34.5 hours in June.
Hiring has slowed from last year’s pace. The Fed last month upgraded its assessment of the labor market, describing it as continuing to “improve, with solid job gains and declining unemployment.” Also, misleading.
Average hourly earnings increased 5 cents, or 0.2%, last month after being flat in June. That put them 2.1% above the year-ago mark, and well off of the 3.5% growth rate economists associate with full employment.
Wage growth has been disappointingly slow. But tightening labor market conditions and decisions by several state and local governments to raise their minimum wage have caused some misguided expectations of a pickup .
A broad measure of joblessness that includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment fell to 10.4% last month, the lowest since June 2008, from 10.5% in June.
But the labor force participation rate, or the share of working-age Americans who are employed or at least looking for a job, held at a 40 yr low of 62.6%.
Employment gains in July were concentrated in the very low paying service industries.
Factory payrolls increased 15,000 as some automakers have decided to forgo a usual Summer plant shutdown for retooling.
More layoffs in the high paying energy sector, which is grappling with the continuing deep dive in Crude Oil prices, were a drag on mining payrolls, which shed 4,000 jobs in July. The mining sector has lost 78,000 jobs since December.
Oilfield giants Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) and Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) and many others in the Oil & Gas industry have announced thousands of job cuts in the past few months and more are coming from the exploration, producers and support sectors.
Have a terrific weekend.
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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