The American economy added 160,000 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 a sluggish 70,000 jobs. The number of workers in the labor force declined, but the number of unemployed also declined, which means the headline unemployment rate stayed steady at 5.0 percent. Public sector employment decreased by 11,000 jobs.
Hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees were up at an annual rate of about 2.9 percent compared to last month, which is only slightly higher than the rate of inflation. However, weekly hours worked were up, which means weekly earnings increased at a healthy annual rate of 6.7 percent.
Bottom line: not horrible but nothing to write home about. The economy is growing, but overall we seem to remain mired in a great stagnation.
