BLS: 195,000 Jobs Added in June

From ABC:

“The Labor Department reported unemployment stayed steady at 7.6 percent as 195,000 jobs were added, an improvement from the slow but steady growth that’s become the norm since the last recession.

As expected, the average workweek stayed steady at 34.5 hours. Average hourly earnings increased by 5 cents to $20.14 after being unchanged in May.

Last month, the Labor Department reported an unemployment rate of 7.6 percent with the addition of 175,000 jobs in May, which was revised to 195,000. Job additions for April were revised to 199,000 from 149,000.”

This is a mostly decent jobs report. The jobs number is well above 150,000, which is needed just to keep up with population growth. However, given the number of long-term unemployed and the still elevated jobless rate of 7.3% , it would be nice to see it a bit higher.

We’ve known for a while that this recovery wouldn’t be easy. Even the rosiest of projections didn’t see the job market returning to pre-recession levels until the middle of the decade. But it is good to know that things aren’t getting worse, and that slowly but surely they are getting better.