WASHINGTON – Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 132,000 in June, according to the Employment Situation report released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the nation’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.5 percent for the third consecutive month and the third consecutive quarter.
The payroll expansion surpassed the 125,000-job increase predicted in a survey of 81 economists by Bloomberg News, though the survey correctly predicted the June unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.
“The June employment increase followed gains of 122,000 in April and 190,000 in May, as revised,” Philip L. Rones, deputy commissioner of the BLS, said in a statement accompanying the report. “In the first half of 2007, job growth averaged 145,000 per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 189,000 in 2006.”
The nation’s service sector showed an increase in employment even as manufacturing employment continued to decline. Health care employers added 30,000 jobs in June, part of an increase of 371,000 over the past year. Food service and drinking place employment expanded by 35,000 jobs in June, a little above its average monthly increase in 2006 of 31,000. Government employment, a key component of the service sector, added more than 40,000 jobs in June.
A drop in retail trade employment of 24,000 over the month was nearly offset by a gain of more than 20,000 in wholesale trade jobs.
Growth in the professional and business services continued to slow in relation to 2006 growth, with an average of 13,000 jobs added per month compared with 42,000 per month in the last six months of 2006. At the same time, the financial activities and information sectors continued to stagnate.
Employment in manufacturing continued to decline, falling by 18,000 jobs last month. But the construction sector, which has lost 44,000 jobs since its most recent peak in September, showed little change in June.
“Average hourly earnings for private production and nonsupervisory workers increased 6 cents in June to $17.38,” the BLS deputy commissioner said, “a gain of 0.3 percent.” The increase matched the Bloomberg survey’s forecast. “Over the year, average hourly earnings were up by 3.9 percent,” Rones added.
Meanwhile, he said, “the number of discouraged workers [no longer in the labor force] declined from a year earlier.”
The BLS revisions added 75,000 to the payroll figures previously reported for April and May, Bloomberg News noted. “That’s a big revision upwards,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York. “It’s certainly good news. It says there’s a very strong market out there for jobs.”
The full Commissioner’s Statement on the Employment Situation can be viewed at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jec.pdf. Additional information, including the 28-page Employment Situation report, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov.
