U.S. Hiring Continues to Grow Despite Unemployment Rate Increase
July 2018As our robust economy continues to ramp up, employers added 213 non-farm jobs to the payroll in June according to the Labor Department. Despite original forecasts of 200,000 by economists, unemployment rate crept up to 4%, up from 3.8% in May.
While the unemployment slightly increased it was largely due to an influx of eligible workers added to the labor market. Recent graduates, parents or others previously frustrated by their prospects have entered or reentered the labor force causing the labor force to grow an average of 250,000 workers each month this year. In June, the share of American adults working or looking for a job rose 0.2% to 62.9%.
The shrinking pool of labor is slowly forcing companies to raise pay as the competition for talent intensifies, but they are still managing to keep labor costs down. Hourly wages rose a modest $0.05 to $26.98. The yearly rate of pay increases was unchanged at 2.7%, sitting slightly lower than the current rate of inflation which reached 2.9% in June.
