Workers

NBC News - The U.S. economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, a sign that the labor market had not stabilized after four months of positive growth.  The unemployment rate ticked down only slightly to 4.1%.

….In yet another troubling sign for the labor market, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that it revised down the prior two months by a combined 103,000. May’s jobs total was cut by 66,000 to 129,000 total jobs added, while June’s total was lowered by 37,000 to a total gain of 57,000.

…. The change in workers’ average hourly earnings also fell well short of economists’ expectations. Wage growth was 0.1% from June, or 3.2% from one year ago. That’s also below inflation, which was 3.5% in its most recent reading.

Economists had been expecting wages to continue pacing at 3.5% from a year ago, but instead wage growth slowed. “The labor market is stalling again,” wrote Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, who called the report “bleak.”

In a post on X, Long also pointed to another troubling data point: The labor force participation rate in July was the lowest since February 2021, a sign that workers are dropping out of the workforce.