It’s jobs-report day, the one Friday every month where we’re reminded of how long and grueling our economic recovery will be! According to the report, the economy added just 83,000 private-sector jobs in June which is better than losing jobs, but not enough to impress people. “At this stage of the recovery this is nothing,” California State University economics professor Sung Won Sohn tells CNBC. “We need a couple hundred thousand a month to grow the economy.” At the same time, 225,000 temporary census workers were kicked off the government dole, pushing the overall June numbers into negative territory with 125,000 jobs lost in total. And the unemployment rate fell from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent, the lowest it’s been since July 2009, but that could be chalked up partly to people who have stopped looking for work. Unrelatedly, maybe it’s time for us to start taking the census more than once every ten years like, say, once a month.
WRAPUP 2-U.S. payrolls fall, private hiring below forecasts [Reuters]
U.S. Economy Shed 125,000 Jobs in June; Rate Is 9.5% [NYT]
