•Press Release
July 6, 2007 (Jobs Byte)
Jobs Byte by Heather Boushey
For Immediate Release: July 6, 2007
Contact: Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115
Inflation-adjusted wages have been falling in 2007.
The economy added 132,000 new jobs in June. Data for April and May were revised upwards by a total of 117,000 jobs. Overall, the employment report shows many signs of a healthy labor market: unemployment remains at 4.5 percent, and the share of the population with a job—the employment rate—rose back to 63.1 percent in June, after falling to 63.0 in April and May.
There are also other signs that the pace of job creation is slowing. The establishment survey shows that in 2007, the economy added an average of 145,000 new jobs, compared to a monthly average of nearly 190,000 in 2006. The household survey shows fairly flat employment growth over this time period, adding only an average of 36,000 new jobs each month, compared to a monthly average of 262,000 in 2006.
Trends in the household and establishment surveys tend to diverge more when the economy is near an inflection point, moving from recession to expansion or vice versa. At the beginning of this economic recovery, the household survey showed stronger employment growth, compared to the establishment survey. At this point, the establishment survey may be overestimating employment if the BLS’s imputation model is overestimating firm “births” and underestimating firm “deaths.” The model is based on the past five years of job creation, but cannot accurately predict when an economy is near an inflection point.
