The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of June on Friday July 6th .
According to the BLS, the current “Seasonally Adjusted” Unemployment Rate for June (released July 6th) is 4.0% up from 3.8% in May and 3.9% in April. It was 4.1% where it was stuck from October 2017 through March 2018. Prior to October it was bouncing around between 4.3% and 4.4% since April 2017, after declining from 4.8% in January 2017.
Typically Unemployment levels are worse in June and July, so even though 213,000 more people are employed, unemployment levels still went up. (Probably because students are swelling the labor force for the summer). Last year (2017) Unadjusted Unemployment jumped from 4.1% in May to 4.5% in June while Employment went from 146.937 million to 147.578 million. So even though more people are working more people are also looking for a job. This has driven the Labor Force Participation Rate at 63.4% to levels not seen in several years. NOTE: On 8/3/2018 with the release of the new July numbers the BLS adjusted the June LFPR down to 62.9%.
Key June Employment and Unemployment Numbers
- Adjusted U-3 Unemployment- 4.0% Up from 3.8% in May, 3.9% in April but still Below the 4.1% October – March.
- Unadjusted U-3 Unemployment- 4.2% up from 3.6% in May, 3.7% in April and 4.1% in March.
- Unadjusted U-6 Unemployment- 8.1% up from 7.3% in May, 7.4% in April and from 8.1% in March and 8.6% in February.
- Employment 149.980 million up from 149.334 million in May, 148.372 million in April and 147.384 million in March.
- Gallup has discontinued publishing U-6 & U-3 numbers.
See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.
Employment by Sector
The employment “bubble chart” gives us a good representation of how each sector of the economy is doing (employment wise). As we can see from the chart below [Read more…] about June Employment Up AND Unemployment UP