July jobs report surprisingly better than expected

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"We sure could use a little good news today" – Little Good News, by Anne Murray (1983)

Today we got some surprisingly good news in the July jobs report. Steve Benen reports at the Political Animal – Job numbers beat expectations, unemployment drops:

Given the expectations and the larger global concerns — most notably yesterday’s unpleasantness on Wall Street — it came as a very welcome surprise this morning when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the jobs report from July. The results: the economy created a net total of 117,000 jobs. The national unemployment inched just a little lower, dropping to 9.1%.

All told, the private sector gained 154,000 jobs, while the public sector lost 37,000 jobs, due entirely to budget cuts at the state and local level. Both the overall jobs picture and the private-sector numbers were the best results we’ve seen since April, and the public sector numbers wouldn’t have been quite so bad were it not for the now-resolved government shutdown in Minnesota.

Making matters slightly better still, the totals from May and June were both revised upwards.

That’s the encouraging news. The far-less encouraging news is that exceeding expectations is not the same thing as a jobs report that’s actually good. An economy added 117,000 jobs a month isn’t quite keeping up with population growth, and to bring down the unemployment rate in a hurry, we would be looking for totals well over double the number we see in this morning’s report.

This is, in other words, good news only to the extent that we thought it’d be awful news.

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[I]f policymakers in Washington see this report and conclude no action is necessary, they’re making a tragic mistake. We’re still in the midst of a jobs crisis, and while many of us were relieved by the July numbers, they’re not even close to where we need to be.

And with that, here’s the homemade chart I run on the first Friday of every month, showing monthly job losses since the start of the Great Recession.

Steve Benen continues at the Political Animal – Private sector jobs also improving:

Overall, the U.S. economy exceeded expectations, adding 117,000 jobs in July, but as has been the case for a long while, there’s a major gap between the public and private sectors. Businesses added 154,000 jobs over the month, while 37,000 jobs were lost in the public sector at the same time, thanks to budget cuts at the state and local level.

Those are, by the way, budget cuts Republicans are desperate to bring to the federal level. GOP officials see state and local agencies shedding jobs and holding back the economy, and they seriously believe we should be doing more of this everywhere.

The July private-sector totals were the best since April, and both May and June numbers were revised upwards.

Just to be clear, these are encouraging data relative to where we were and what we were expecting, but much more needs to be done. Anyone looking at the new jobs report thinking, “Whew! I guess we’re back on track!” is making a big mistake.

And with that, here’s a different homemade chart, showing monthly job losses/gains in the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. [Note that there has been 17 consecutive months of private sector job growth. The drag on the economy is the loss of public sector jobs due to GOP austerity measures, principally budget cuts at the state and local level.]