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July Jobs Report: Booming Jobs Market, And A Surge In Participation Continues To Depress Wage Growth

By Kurt Osterberg · On August 8, 2018

HEADLINES:

+157,000 jobs added

U3 unemployment rate down -0.1% from 4.0% to 3.9%

U6 underemployment rate down -0.3% from 7.8% to 7.5% (new expansion low)

Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment:

Wages and participation rates

Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: down -95,000 from 5.258 million to 5.163 million

Part time for economic reasons: down -176,000 from 4.743 million to 4.567 million (new expansion low)

Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: up 0.2% from 79.3% to 79.5% (new expansion high)

Average Weekly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $.03 from $22.62 to $22.65, up +2.7% YoY. (Note: you may be reading different information about wages elsewhere. They are citing average wages for all private workers. I use wages for nonsupervisory personnel, to come closer to the situation for ordinary workers.)

Holding Trump accountable on manufacturing and mining jobs

Trump specifically campaigned on bringing back manufacturing and mining jobs. Is he keeping this promise?

Manufacturing jobs rose +37,000 for an average of +29,000/month in the past year vs. the last seven years of Obama’s presidency in which an average of 10,300 manufacturing jobs were added each month.

Coal mining jobs were unchanged for an average of +100/month vs. the last seven years of Obama’s presidency in which an average of -300 jobs were lost each month

May was revised upward by +24,000. June was also revised upward by +35,000, for a net change of +59,000.

The more leading numbers in the report tell us about where the economy is likely to be a few months from now. These were positive.

the average manufacturing workweek was unchanged at 40.9 hours. This is one of the 10 components of the LEI.

construction jobs increased by +19,000. YoY construction jobs are up +308,000.

temporary jobs increased by +27,900.

the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less decreased by -136,000 from 2,227,000 to 2,091,000. The post-recession low was set two months ago at 2,034,000.