Jobless Rate Drops to 7.4%, but Job Growth Still Lags
The nation’s economy added 162,000 new jobs in July and the jobless rate dropped to 7.4% from June’s 7.6%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
William Spriggs, AFL-CIO chief economist, said today’s job numbers “continue to show a very mild recovery, but they fell below expectations and are disappointing.”
While the 162,000 new jobs were below the 195,000 added in June , this month is the 40th straight month of tepid job growth—albeit at a rate too slow to fuel a healthy jobs recovery.
The current pace of job growth is enough to absorb new entrants into the market but makes little dent in the jobs deficit. The slow job growth reinforces the need for Congress to repeal the sequester and its across-the-board cuts that will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and are derailing the economic recovery. Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
This trend will not generate the self-sustaining economic recovery America’s working people deserve – especially if the dysfunction in the U.S. Congress, led by House Republicans and the radical right, continues to generate uncertainty and deep across-the-board cuts in government spending. These trends do not represent a formula for a return to a stable middle-class America, but rather more of the same boom and bust.
Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, points out that a large portion of the newly created jobs “ are falling at the low end of the pay scale.”
Consumer and service industries that pay poverty wages still drive the economy, hardly a recipe for recovery. In addition to the inadequacy of job growth overall, concerns are deepening that the kind of work and wages out there are inadequate to support families or sustain a healthy recovery.
See 25 examples of how the sequester is harming job growth and people .
Spriggs said the report also showed the average wage level edged down 2 cents, meaning that job growth is too slow to push wages up. "So, the Federal Reserve can continue its quantitative easing without inflation fears."
The number of long-term unemployed people (those who are jobless for 27 weeks or more) dipped slightly from 4.4 million to 4.2 million, accounting for 37% of people without jobs. The number of long-term jobless has dropped by 921,000 over the past 12 months.
The unemployment rates for adult women (6.5%) and African Americans (12.6%) declined in July. While rates for adult men (7%), teenagers (23.7%), whites (6.6%) and Hispanics (9.4%) showed little or no change.
Some good news is an uptick in hiring for local education jobs.
The biggest job gains were in retail (47,000), leisure and hospitality (38,000), professional and business services (36,000), financial services (15,000) and wholesale (14,000).
Construction jobs were down slightly. Employment in other major industries, including mining, manufacturing, government, transportation and warehousing, showed little change from June.
