The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its July 2024 Report, so let’s take a look at how employment fared over the last month.
The great news is:
- In July, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 114,000 people.
- Transportation and warehousing, construction, and health caresaw the largest share of new jobs in July.
- In July, average hourly earnings for private non-farm payroll jobs increased by 0.2%, or 8 cents, to $35.07. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.6%.
The good news is:
- The number of long-term unemployed, people without a job for 27 weeks or more, remained at 1.5 million people, accounting for 21.6% of total unemployed persons, remaining up from 1.2 million people at the same time last year.
- The average work week for private non-farm payroll employees decreased by 0.1 hours to 34.2 hours in July.
- The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job increased by 366,000 to 5.6 million people in July. Keep in mind, these 5.6 million people were not counted as unemployed because they were unavailable to take a job or were not actively looking for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
The bad news is:
- The unemployment rate increased in June to 4.3%, or 7.2 million people.
- The number of discouraged workers who believed there were no jobs available to them increased to 405,000 people.
- There was a minimal increase in the labor force participation rate, increasing by 0.1% to 62.7%. This value has shown little change over the past year.