MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
US unemployment down to 6.1% and the Dow Jones at 17.000 for first time
The labor force participation rate remained steady at 62.8%, indicating that decline was not due to discouraged workers US economy added 288,000 jobs in June, latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics have shown. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.1%, its lowest level since September 2008.
That figure beat analysts' expectations and is an encouraging sign after disappointing growth in the first quarter of 2014. The strong report sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 17,000 for the first time as investors cheered the news.
Economists blamed harsh winter weather for a 2.9% annualized decline in US economic output from January to March. Jobs growth in professional and business services was particularly strong, with 67,000 jobs being created, followed by gains in the retail sector, which added 40,000 jobs.
Hourly wages - which is a measure watched closely by policy makers and has been recently highlight by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen - rose 0.2% in June and have climbed 2.0% for the year.
“There really isn't anything to be disappointed with,” wrote Jefferies bank economists in a note to clients, noting that manufacturing jobs growth was particularly strong.
“There was a 0.2% dip in the unemployment rate based on ”good reasons“ and household employment was up strongly,” they added.
One “good reason” was that unlike in past reports, where the unemployment rate has dipped primarily because many Americans had given up looking for work, the June decline seems to be mostly due to actual jobs growth.
The labor force participation rate remained steady at 62.8%, indicating that decline was not due to discouraged workers. However, long-term unemployment remains an ongoing concern.
The number of US job-seekers who have been out of work for over 27 weeks decreased by 293,000 in June, to 3.1 million people - around a third of those who are out of work.
“Long-term unemployment remain[s] elevated, which [is] a key concern for Janet Yellen,” said Aberdeen Asset Management's Luke Bartholomew.
“The big question for the US remains just how many of the long term unemployed will ever get back into work”.
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Read all commentsHello is Tobi reading this?
Jul 04th, 2014 - 12:17 pm 0I told Toby a few weeks ago there are “help wanted” signs everywhere I go. This confirms it.
Jul 04th, 2014 - 03:26 pm 0These numbers mean nothing; they are lies and propaganda, created by government to lead the gullible to believe things are improving.
Jul 04th, 2014 - 10:29 pm 0The Dow at 17,000 means very little when one remembers that the dollar is constantly being devalued by the government/banking system's continuous increasing of the quantity of money. $17,000 has much less purchasing power than it did 5, 10, 20, or more years ago, and the farther back you go, the less value today's money has, in comparison. Inflation would have to be taken into account to have any meaningful comparison to past market levels, and the official statistics on that are fraudulent.
The basis on which employment, inflation, etc. are calculated, is changed so often, and so many things that would make the numbers look worse, excluded, that today's statistics have no relation to those of the past, and any comparison is useless without the numbers being calculated by the same criteria.
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