Unexpectedly!
Huh. When I heard that Christine “Eight Percent” Romer was off to spend more time with her family, I assumed that it meant that the jobs report today would be awful. Which it was; but it wasn’t shockingly awful, if you know what I mean? By now we’re used to the economy being in neutral, or in this case, not actually being in the car anymore and flying through the air in front of us as the canyon floor looms ever larger.
Yup, we shed jobs again this month. Twice as many as forecast.
Nonfarm payrolls fell by 131,000 last month as the rise in private-sector employment was not enough to make up for the government jobs lost, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. Only 71,000 private-sector jobs were added last month while 143,000 temporary workers on the 2010 census were let go.
Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires were expecting total nonfarm payrolls to drop by a smaller 60,000 in July.
Say it with me, folks: “UNEXPECTEDLY!”
The June data was revised down significantly. Payrolls fell 221,000 that month, more than the 125,000 drop previously reported, as only 31,000 jobs were added in the private sector.
Not much else to say here, really, except that this ‘Recovery Summer’ thing? I do not think it means what the White House thinks it means.
Yes, but will her departure count as 10 jobs created? 😉
“UNEXPECTEDLY!”