ALL eyes focused on the homepage of the Bureau of Labour Statistics this morning, in anticipation of the latest release of America's most watched piece of economic data: the monthly jobs report. The hope, as always, was for clarity, some obvious sign of the economy's direction. Unsurprisingly, clarity was not on the menu. Instead, the July report held a bit of something for everyone.
For President Barack Obama, the payroll employment number is surely a relief. Employment rose by en estimated 163,000 jobs in July, up from a distressingly low gain of 64,000 in June (revised down from last month's estimate of 80,000). Private employers did better still, adding 172,000 jobs, helping make up for the continued declines in government payrolls. Since labour markets hit a bottom in early 2010, private employment has risen by 4.5m jobs while public payrolls have shrunk by more than half a million positions. Most of that decline has come from state and local governments, where the pace of employment loss is now slowing. Just 7,000 state and local government jobs were lost in July. But nearly 60,000 federal jobs have been shed since early 2010, including 38,000 in just the past year. The mainstays of private job growth remain manufacturing, professional services, and health and education services. A rebound for the housing sector may soon lift construction employment, but the sector has yet to contribute much to job growth.
For Mr Obama's political opponents, including his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the household survey data offers something to work with. The unemployment rate ticked up from 8.2% to 8.3% in July—statistically unchanged but enough for politicians to claim things are headed in the wrong direction. Household data showed a decline in both employment and the size of the labour force. The employment-population ratio reversed recent gains, dropping back to 58.4% from 58.6%.
And for the Federal Reserve, the jobs report contains enough to allow it to do whatever it likes. Overall economic data have come in weak in recent months, signalling a sharp slowdown (though not enough to make a new recession a looming possibility). Headline inflation has been tumbling on global economic weakness, though core inflation has been fairly stable at close to the Fed's 2% target. Had the deceleration in the pace of hiring observed in the second quarter clearly continued, the Fed would probably have grown concerned that inflation would weaken, making a new round of easing in September all but certain. A blow-out jobs report, by the same token, might have taken new easing off the table. The July figures fall instead in the middle, leaving Fed members free to interpret incoming economic data in a variety of ways: the hawks will see a labour market running near potential while the doves will point to the continued presence of a large gap between actual unemployment and the Fed's (supposed) estimate of unemployment's structural rate.
