The Labor Department's jobs report is in and the numbers are better than expected. The economy added 195,000 jobs in June, the same number added in May, and better than the 160,000 that analysts were predicting. The unemployment rate stayed at 7.6 percent. But in grimmer news, the U-6, the broadest measure of employment that includes unhappy part-timers and people who have given up, rose by half a percentage point to 14.3 percent--a significant increase.
CNN:
The biggest job gains were in leisure and hospitality (up 75,000), professional and business services (up 53,000), and retail (up 37,000). Construction and manufacturing were little changed.
The federal government shed 5,000 positions, continuing a trend brought on by the budget cuts that have eliminated 65,000 jobs in the last 12 months.
The number of people working part time because they couldn't find a full-time position rose by 322,000 from the month before. Some experts also pointed out that many of the newly-created jobs are in low-wage sectors.
"Three quarters of these would qualify as low-quality jobs," said J.J. Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade.
