June jobs report shows strong growth and the promise of recovery: Initial comments from EPI economists
2 min readEPI economists offer their initial insights on the June jobs report below. They see strong growth in employment, especially in labor and hospitality, and the numbers do not signal a big labor shortage. The economy appears to be on its way to a full recovery by the end of 2022.
From economist and director of EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (@ValerieRWilson)
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The 850k jobs added in June reflects lifting of more COVID-19 restrictions in time for summer, no indication of labor shortage, and on pace to reach pre-COVID unemployment rate by end of 2022. 1/n
— Valerie R Wilson (@ValerieRWilson) July 2, 2021
Returning workers are earning more (as they should)–nominal hourly earnings of production non-supervisory workers are up 3.67{e5fab30bc1af2ab9862fe5c16f5be581fd243b6ad78468b48e940aadfb2b849d} over this time last year. 2/n
— Valerie R Wilson (@ValerieRWilson) July 2, 2021
Static unemployment rate, EPOP & labor force participation is difficult to square with strong job growth stats, but highlights challenges with collecting household survey data during & since pandemic. 3/n
— Valerie R Wilson (@ValerieRWilson) July 2, 2021
From senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):
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850k jobs is a significant uptick in job growth, increasing the speed of the recovery. Average monthly job growth over the last three months comes in at 567k. At that pace, we will likely get down to 4{e5fab30bc1af2ab9862fe5c16f5be581fd243b6ad78468b48e940aadfb2b849d} unemployment this time next year with a full recovery by the end of 2022.
5/n— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) July 2, 2021
From senior economist and director of policy, Heidi Shierholz
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Leisure and hospitality grew by 343,000 in June. Over the last three months, leisure & hospitality has added 977,000 jobs—well over half of the 1.7 million total jobs added over that period. Folks, these numbers are just not signaling a big labor shortage. 5/
— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) July 2, 2021
