People browse booths at a military veterans’ job fair in Carson, California October 3, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
The Labor Department said the U.S. economy created 222,000 jobs in the month of June, far more than the 170,000 median economic forecast. The labor participation rate ticked up to 62.8%, pushing the unemployment rate from a 16-year low to 4.4%.
Goods-producing jobs were led by construction at 16,000 and mining at 8,000. The month was a disappointment for manufacturing at 1,000.
However, employment for the past few months were revised significantly higher. April was revised up from +174,000 to +207,000, and the change for May was revised up from +138,000 to +152,000. With these revisions, employment gains in April and May combined were 47,000 more than previously reported.
The one negative in the report was that wages continue to show little improvement, despite private data showing the contrary in manufacturing and production. Average hourly earnings were only 0.2% in June, while they’ve gained just 2.5% on the year.
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls were up, 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours in June. In manufacturing, the workweek also ticked up slightly by 0.1 hour to 40.8 hours, while overtime was unchanged at a respectably 3.3 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 0.1 hour to 33.7 hours
