June Employment Figures Improved, but Still Anemic for Construction [1]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning released the June Employment figures [8] for the US. According to the press release, “Nonfarm payroll employment continued to edge up in June (+80,000), and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2%.” According to the latest data, the construction industry added an anemic 2,000 jobs in June after a loss of 35,000 jobs in May, showing improvement on a month to month basis, but still not the numbers we are looking for to indicate that the industry has regained its footing.
The new numbers indicate that unemployment in the industry is still above 13% and the numbers do not reflect much growth at all during June when construction in the country should be in high gear for the summer.
The job growth for the period was found in Professional and Business Services (47,000), Management and Technical consulting services (+9,000), and in computer systems design and related services (7,000). Manufacturing continued to grow (11,000). All other sectors slowed or stayed the same, according to the release.
Generally, the economy has slowed and we are being painted with the same brush. As we speculated earlier, companies and the economy might be waiting to see the outcome of the fall elections. We will wait for the July numbers to be released on Friday August 3 to see whether the jobs picture has improved at all.