Nonfarm employment grew by 209,000 jobs in June, following the addition of 306,000 jobs in May (downward revision), according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Over the past six months, job gains have averaged 278,000 per month.
“Sensible hiring is the new strategy,” said Jason Pyle, president and managing director of Harvey Nash USA. “The market is no longer clearly employer-driven or candidate-driven; it’s come to a normalized balance.”
Job growth in government, health care
Leading job growth for the month, government employment gained 60,000 in June, with jobs added in both state (+27,000) and local government (+32,000). Health care increased by 41,000 jobs, growing employment in hospitals (+15,000), nursing and residential care facilities (+12,000), and home health care services (+9,000).
Professional and business services added 21,000 jobs in June, driven by the addition of 23,000 jobs in professional, scientific, and technical services.
Meanwhile, temporary help services lost 12,600 jobs for the month. Jobs also declined in retail trade (-11,000) and transportation and warehousing (-7,000).
Unemployment rate inches down to 3.6%
June’s unemployment rate was 3.6%, representing 6.0 million unemployed people (+440,000).
Unemployment rates for all major worker groups changed little over the month:
- Adult men: 3.4% (3.5% in May)
- Adult women: 3.1% (3.3% in May)
- Teenagers: 11.0% (10.3% in May)
- Black: 6.0% (5.6% in May)
- Hispanic: 4.3% (4.0% in May)
- Asian: 3.2% (2.9% in May)
- White: 3.1% (3.3% in May)
Unemployment situations change little
The number of those facing long-term unemployment (jobless for 27 weeks or more) held fairly steady for the month at 1.1 million (18.5% of the total unemployed), and the labor force participation rate remained at 62.6% for the fourth month in a row.
There were 4.2 million people working part time for economic reasons (an increase of 452,000). The number of those not currently in the labor force who wanted a job edged down to 5.4 million — among these people, 1.4 million were marginally attached to the labor force and 310,000 were considered discouraged workers (a decrease of 112,000).
Wage growth up by $0.12 per hour
Average hourly earnings for private nonfarm employment rose by $0.12 cents to $33.58 in June, bringing the 12-month average increase to 4.4%. The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payroll inched up by 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours.
“Candidates will still get competitive offers,” Pyle added, “but may not get multiple offers like they’ve been used to for the last couple of years. We also won’t see the big jump in wages like we did last year.”
