NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The job market strengthened in July, a welcome piece of good news that sharply contrasted other recent readings pointing toward an economic slowdown.
Employers added 117,000 jobs last month, well above the 46,000 jobs added in June, and easily topping the 75,000 gain predicted by economists surveyed by CNNMoney.Weak job reports for both May and June were revised higher, adding a combined 56,000 jobs for the year.
Businesses were busy hiring, adding 154,000 workers in the month, topping forecasts of 100,000 new jobs. But those gains were tempered by a loss of 37,000 government jobs, mostly from state and local governments, where budget shortfalls led to layoffs in July, especially in Minnesota where the government was briefly shut down.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 9.1%. The Labor Department said the improvement was mostly due to people leaving the labor force.
Although this is a good sign there are still 13.9 million Americans unemployed; we still have a long way to go. (I think the unemployment rate was around 9.2% or 9.3% before.) :sigh: