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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By LUCA DI LEO
The U.S. economy barely added jobs for the second month in a row in June and
the unemployment rate rose to the highest level this year, dashing hopes
the economic recovery is getting back on track and putting pressure on
policymakers to react.
The nation's unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2% in June, with only 18,000
non-farm payrolls added to the economy. WSJ's Sudeep Reddy and Phil Izzo
join the News Hub panel to break down the numbers.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 18,000 last month, far less than expected, as small
gains in the private sector were just enough to outweigh continued
government job losses, the Labor Department said Friday. Payrolls data for
the previous two months were revised down by a total 44,000 to show
increases of only 25,000 jobs in May, and 217,000 in April.
President Barack Obama urged Congress to quickly enact measures that could
help the economy, including trade agreements to boost sales of American
goods to Asia and South America, and the extension of a 2011 payroll tax cut
. "We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do," Mr. Obama said.
The jobless rate increased for the third straight month to 9.2% in June, the
highest level since December 2010. There are 14.1 million Americans who
would like to work but can't get a job.
Economists, who believed the May slowdown was largely due to temporary
factors like disruptions to manufacturing stemming from Japan's earthquake,
had forecast payrolls would rise by 125,000 in June and the jobless rate
would be unchanged from May's 9.1% level.
The choppy two-year-old recovery is proving to be one of the worst since the
1930s. It's been too slow to make up for all the jobs lost after the
financial crisis, hiking pressure on policymakers to fix the economy. The
Federal Reserve, however, is unable to do much more, leaving most of the
burden on the government.
Mr. Obama said that despite recent headwinds -- such as natural disasters
and high gas prices at home, and Europe's debt crisis -- "we can make things
better." He said the U.S. needs to build and upgrade its roads and railways
, which would help put back to work some of the many construction workers
still without a job.
More
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The Jobless Rate Without Dropouts
Worrying Trend for Temps
Labor Force: Who's working
For its part, the Fed has recently signaled a reluctance to take further
steps to boost the economy. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said June 22 that the
bar to buy more government bonds is high now that inflation is rising. The
central bank's second round of bond purchases, which ended in June, had
limited success in boosting jobs.
With short-term interest rates already close to zero, the Fed "doesn't have
much more to do at this stage that is meaningful," said Joshua Shapiro,
chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc.
Friday's report showed private-sector employers, which account for about 70%
of the work force, added only 57,000 jobs in June, down from 73,000 in May.
The weakness was broad-based.
Manufacturing employment was broadly flat for the second month in a row,
dashing hopes of a bounce back following the disruptions stemming from Japan
's earthquake. Employment in the battered construction sector was also
unchanged. The housing sector remains a big drag on the economy. Employment
in professional and business services, which had shown strong gains in
previous months, rose by only 12,000.
Government employment fell by 39,000, the eighth drop in a row, following
declines in all levels of government struggling to close budget gaps.
Bruce Kasman, chief economist at J.P. Morgan, summed up the data as an "an
extremely downbeat message across the board."
Taking into account millions of Americans who have quit looking for jobs
altogether or have settled for part-time jobs, a broader unemployment figure
rose to 16.2% in June from 15.8% a month earlier.
The report showed nearly a third of the unemployed were out of work for over
a year, making their reintegration into the labor market more and more
difficult. People out of a job that long tend to lose skills and experience
long-term effects on their lifetime earning power.
Americans' incomes, which are crucial to fuel the spending needed to boost
the economy, edged lower. Average hourly earnings of all employees fell $0.
01 to $22.99. Over the past year, earnings have increased by only 1.9%.
Though the Fed is unlikely to ease policy further, the weak jobs picture
postpones any serious talk about tightening credit. Mr. Kasman said he now
feels "very comfortable" with J.P. Morgan's prediction that the central bank
won't raise interest rates from close to zero all the way into 2013.
—Jeff Bater and Michael Crittenden contributed to this article.
Write to Luca Di Leo at l********[email protected] |
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