Calculated Risk July 5, 2024 9:14 AM
The June employment report showed higher-than-expected payrolls, but revised down the April and May payrolls by a combined 111,000. The participation rate increased, the employment rate remained unchanged, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.1%.
Construction employment increased by 27,000, 630,000 above pre-pandemic levels.
Manufacturing employment fell by 8,000 and is now 170,000 above pre-pandemic levels.
Prime (25-54 years old) participants
Because overall participation rates are affected by both cyclical (recessions) and demographic factors (ageing population, young people staying in school), the employment-population ratio for the main working-age group, 25-54 years old, is:
Participation among those ages 25 to 54 rose from 83.6% in May to 83.7% in June, the highest level since 2001.
The proportion of the employed population aged 25 to 54 remained unchanged from the previous month's 80.8% at 80.8%.
Both are above pre-pandemic levels and near their highest levels this century.
Average hourly wage
This chart shows the nominal year-over-year change in “average hourly wage” for all private sector employees from the Current Employment Statistics (CES).
There was a big increase early in the pandemic as low-wage employees were laid off, but the pandemic-related surge was reversed a year later.
Wage growth has been declining since peaking at 5.9% y/y in March 2022, to 3.9% y/y in June.
Part-time for financial reasons
From the BLS report:
“The number of people working part-time for economic reasons remains at 4.2 million, little changed in June. These people who would have liked to work full-time are working part-time because their hours have been reduced or they could not find full-time work. “The number of people working part-time for economic reasons fell from 4.42 million in May to 4.22 million in June, lower than pre-pandemic levels.
These workers are included in the alternative measure of labor force underutilization (U-6), which remained unchanged from 7.4% last month. This is down from an all-time high of 23.0% in April 2020 and up from the record low (seasonally adjusted) of 6.5% in December 2022 (the series began in 1994). The measure is above its February 2020 (pre-pandemic) level of 7.0%.
Unemployed for more than 26 weeks
This graph shows the number of workers who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1.515 million workers have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and are still looking for work, up from 1.35 million the previous month.
That's down from a post-pandemic high of 4.174 million but up from a recent low of 1.055 million.
This is above pre-pandemic levels.
Continuous employment
The jobs report indicates 42 consecutive months of positive employment growth through June 2024, making the current employment streak the fifth-longest in U.S. history (since 1939).
Headline Jobs, Top 10 Streaks Year End Streaks, Month 12019100 2199048 3200746 4197945 52024142 6 tie194333 6 tie198633 6 tie200033 9196729 10199525 1Current Streaks
summary:
The June employment report showed higher-than-expected payrolls, but revised down the April and May payrolls by a combined 111,000. The participation rate increased, the employment rate remained unchanged, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.1%.
But another decent report showed the three-month average job gain slowed to 177 jobs per month.