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The American economy added 280,000 new jobs last month, 90,000 of which were needed to keep up with population growth. This means that net job growth clocked in at 190,000 jobs, which is quite a bit better than the past two months. The unemployment rate ticked up a few hundredths of a point and now rounds off to 5.5 percent, slightly higher than last month. But it was mostly because more people are entering the labor force, which is a good thing.
Roughly speaking, this report is fairly good news. Not great news, especially after the lousy jobs reports in March and April, but OK. Our economy continues to putter along in second gear.
