Overview
- The Labor Department's June jobs report, released July 2, showed the U.S. added just 57,000 nonfarm payrolls, roughly half of economists' expectations.
- April and May were revised down by a combined 74,000 jobs, removing much of the recent hiring momentum and making the slowdown look broader than a single month.
- The official unemployment rate fell to 4.2% while the labor force shrank by about 720,000 people and the participation rate slipped to 61.5%, meaning the lower jobless rate partly reflected people leaving the labor market.
- Sector data were uneven with leisure and hospitality losing about 61,000 jobs while health care, construction, and professional services added positions, and household survey data showed full-time employment fell by roughly 514,000.
- Traders quickly cut the odds of a July rate hike as Bitcoin and other risk assets rallied in holiday-thin trading, and policymakers now face a choice between treating June as noise or as evidence of material cooling; note that the BLS issues two surveys that can tell different stories so the Fed will watch upcoming inflation prints and jobs reads for confirmation.