The new jobs report from the Department of Labor revealed that America’s unemployment rate has increased to 4.1 percent, its highest level since November 2021, despite the fact that 206,000 jobs were added to the economy.
CNBC provided a graph to visualize the rise in joblessness. Economists had predicted that the unemployment rate would stay at 4.0 percent, and with this upset the Federal Reserve policymakers may change course.
As a CNBC anchor noted, “So you have to go back now to October of ’21 to find a higher rate, which was 4.5.”
NEW: The official jobs numbers from the past two months have been revised downward by -111,000.
The unemployment rate has risen to 4.1% — the highest since November 2021. pic.twitter.com/STPNNClKGl
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Some had a different interpretation of the data. “It’s a soft landing kind of report,” said Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius. “This does support the idea that [the Fed] will cut relatively soon, and we continue to think September is the most likely.”
The more broad unemployment tracker that counts “discouraged workers” and part-time workers did not budge from 7.4 percent.
The jobs added surpassed the Dow Jones’ projections of 200,000, but they were less than the gain of 218,000 in May which failed to hit the projection of 272,000 for that month.
Much of the added jobs were accounted for by a flood of 70,000 government jobs, and the healthcare sector which added 49,000. The social assistance sector saw 34,000 added jobs and construction saw 27,000 jobs. Professional services declined by 17,000 and retail by 9,000.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics and business for VT and a regular guest on The Unusual Suspects. Follow Shane’s work here.
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