Evelyn Reynolds

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    Jobless rates rise in June for white, Black and Hispanic women but fall for men in the three racial groups

    The unemployment rate increased for women from white, Black and Hispanic racial groups in June.
    On the other hand, jobless rates fell last month for male workers from these demographic buckets.
    The labor force participation rate held steady for white workers but decreased for Black Americans. This number rose for both Asian and Hispanic Americans.

    Jobseekers attend the JobNewsUSA.com South Florida Job Fair held at the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on June 26, 2024.
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images

    The unemployment rate for women in white, Black and Hispanic racial groups rose in June in line with the overall trend, according to data released Friday by the Department of Labor.
    In June, white adult women saw their unemployment rate rise to 3.1% from 3.0% the month prior. The jobless rate similarly increased for Black and Hispanic women to 5.7% from 5.2% and 4.5% from 4.1%, respectively.

    This trend was in line with the overall unemployment rate, which edged higher to 4.1% from 4.0% last month.
    On the other hand, the unemployment rate fell for men in all three racial groups. The rate ticked down to 3.2% from 3.4% for white males, while falling to 4.2% from 4.7% for Hispanic men. Jobless rates also declined to 6.1% from 6.4% for Black men, although the category still has the highest unemployment rates among all the demographic groups.

    “We’ve seen a lot of gains for women in this pandemic, in this recovery — a lot of notable highs that they’ve experienced. They hit historic all-time highs in terms of their employment in the labor market. But we did see some softening among women in June, and that was accompanied by this rise for men,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
    However, Gould noted that it’s curious this rise in female unemployment last month corresponded with an influx in jobs in health care and social assistance, which are traditionally not thought of as male-dominated fields.
    The unemployment rate for white workers in general stayed steady at 3.5%. This number fell to 4.9% from 5% for Hispanic workers but rose to 6.3% from 6.1% for Black Americans and 4.1% from 3.1% for Asian Americans. The jobless rates for Asian workers separated by gender were not readily available.

    Last month, the labor force participation rate — the percentage of the population that is either employed or actively seeking work — ticked higher to 62.6% from 62.5% in May.

    Among white workers, the rate steadied, while it fell to 62.7% from 62.9% for Black Americans. This compares with the labor force participation rate for Asian and Hispanic workers, which respectively rose to 65.9% from 65.3% and 67.5% from 67.3%.
    — CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report. More

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    Here’s where the jobs are for June — in one chart

    U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by 206,000 in June, but the growth was narrow.
    Health care and social assistance added 82,400 positions, while government grew by 70,000 jobs.
    Several categories saw employment shrink, including manufacturing and professional and business services.

    The breakdown of the June jobs report suggests that growth has become increasingly uneven as the labor market shows signs of softening.
    U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by 206,000 in June, according to the Labor Department, but the job gains were narrow. Health care and social assistance added 82,400 jobs, while government increased by 70,000 positions. Several categories saw employment shrink, including manufacturing.

    Health care and social assistance have been a key component of the labor market recovery since the pandemic. Ambulatory health services added 22,000 jobs in June, while hospitals grew their payrolls by 21,700.
    Meanwhile, education accounted for 17,200 of the jobs added in the government sector. Both state and local governments added jobs outside of education, as well.
    Professional and business services was a weak spot, shedding 17,000 jobs. Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, pointed out that the unemployment rate ticked up among workers with at least a bachelor’s degree.
    “The increase in the unemployment rate, especially for those with at least a Bachelor’s degree, suggests a modest cooling of the labor market. So far, we don’t see apocalyptic signs within the labor market, but investors should be wary when the labor market is supported by government payrolls,” Roach said in a note Friday morning.
    One potential bright spot within the report was construction, which gained 27,000 jobs. That’s an increase from the average gain of 20,000 over the past year, according to the Labor Department.

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    U.S. economy added 206,000 jobs in June, unemployment rate rises to 4.1%

    Job seekers attends the JobNewsUSA.com South Florida Job Fair held at the Amerant Bank Arena on June 26, 2024 in Sunrise, Florida. 
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images

    The U.S. economy again added slightly more jobs than expected in June though the unemployment rate increased, the Labor Department reported Friday.
    Nonfarm payrolls increased by 206,000 for the month, better than the 200,000 Dow Jones forecast though less than the downwardly revised gain of 218,000 in May, which was cut sharply from the initial estimate of 272,000.

    The unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed to 4.1%, tied for the highest level since October 2021 and providing a conflicting sign for Federal Reserve officials weighing their next move on monetary policy. The forecast had been for the jobless rate to hold steady at 4%.
    The increase in the unemployment rate came as the labor force participation rate, which indicates the level of working-age people who are employed or actively searching for a job, rose to 62.6%, up 0.1 percentage point.
    A broader unemployment rate which counts discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons held steady at 7.4%. Household employment, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, increased by 116,000.

    Though June job creation topped expectations, it was due in large part to a 70,000 surge in government jobs. Also, health care, a consistent leader by sector, added 49,000 while social assistance contributed 34,000 and construction was up 27,000.
    Several sectors saw declines, including professional and business services (-17.000), and retail (-9,000).

    On wages, average hourly earnings increased 0.3% for the month and 3.9% from a year ago, both in line with estimates. The average work week was steady at 34.3 hours.

    In addition to the substantial revision in the May payrolls count, the Bureau of Labor Statistics lowered April to just 108,000, a slide of 57,000 from the previous estimate.
    The report comes with Federal Reserve officials contemplating their next moves on monetary policy.
    At their most recent meeting, policymakers indicated they need to see more progress on inflation before lowering interest rates, while noting that a strong economy and in particular a solid labor market lessen the urgency to act anytime soon, according to minutes released earlier this week.
    Despite indications to the contrary, markets are pricing in two rate cuts, assuming quarter percentage point reductions, before the end of 2024. Fed officials at the June meeting penciled in just one reduction, saying they need to see “additional favorable data” before moving forward with reductions.
    The Fed targets its key lending rate in a range between 5.25%-5.5%, the highest in 23 years and a level at which it has sat for about a year.
    There have been recent signs of cracks in the labor market, with purchase manager surveys showing contraction in hiring for both the manufacturing and services sector.
    Moreover, broader economic growth is slowing. Gross domestic product increased just 1.4% annualized in the first quarter and is on track to grow at just a 1.5% pace in the second quarter, according to the Atlanta Fed.
    This is breaking news. Please check back here for updates. More

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    Investors Bet on Rate Cuts as Recent Data Suggests Slowdown

    Investors are poised for a report on Friday to show a slowdown in the pace of hiring in June, building on weak services and manufacturing data, and to firm up their expectations of interest rate cuts starting as soon as September.Signs of lower rates in the near future, which would make it cheaper for consumers and companies to borrow, have typically been accompanied by market rallies.Stock indexes tracking larger companies have been buoyed in recent weeks. The S&P 500 has repeatedly set fresh records and is up more than 16 percent this year. However, the Russell 2000 index, which tracks smaller companies that are more sensitive to the ebb and flow of the economy, has largely flatlined, with weaker economic data this week nudging the index 0.5 percent lower ahead of the Independence Day holiday.Economists are forecasting that the June jobs report will show a healthy labor market, albeit with fewer jobs added and an easing in wage growth. Earlier this week, widely watched surveys of manufacturing and services activity both came in lower than forecast.Coupled with signs of cooling inflation, a deceleration in economic growth would give the Federal Reserve a justification for cutting rates, which have been held at high levels for months.Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at a conference this week that if the economic data continued to come in as it has recently, the Fed could consider cutting interest rates.“We’ve made quite a bit of progress in bringing inflation back down to our target, while the labor market has remained strong and growth has continued,” Mr. Powell said. “We want that process to continue.”Mr. Powell didn’t specify when the Fed would start to cut rates but investors are forecasting that it will take action in September, with roughly two quarter-point cuts expected for the year. Those bets have increased from the start of the week, when a cut in September was seen as more of a 50/50 proposition.The data has come in “a bit weaker than expected,” noted analysts at Deutsche Bank, “and it all added to the theme that the economy was losing momentum as we arrive in the second half of the year.” More

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    Fed Officials Keep an Eye Out for Cracks in the Job Market

    The labor market has maintained surprising vigor over the past year, but as fewer jobs go unfilled and a growing number of people linger on unemployment insurance rosters, Federal Reserve officials have begun to watch for cracks.Central bankers have recently begun to clearly say that if the labor market softens unexpectedly, they could cut interest rates — a slight shift in their stance after years in which they worked to cool the economy and bring a hot job market back into balance.Policymakers have left interest rates at 5.3 percent since July 2023, a decades-long high that is making it more expensive to get a mortgage or carry a credit card balance. That policy setting is slowly weighing on demand across the economy, with the goal of wrestling rapid inflation fully under control.But as inflation cools, Fed officials have made it clear that they are trying to strike a careful balance: They want to ensure that inflation is in check, but they want to avoid upending the job market. Given that, policymakers have signaled over the past month that they would react to a sudden labor market weakening by slashing borrowing costs.The Fed would like to see more cooling inflation data “like what we’ve been seeing recently” before cutting rates, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said during a speech this week. “We’d also like to see the labor market remain strong. We’ve said that if we saw the labor market unexpectedly weakening, that is also something that could call for a reaction.”That’s why employment reports are likely to be a key reference point for central bankers and Wall Street investors who are eager to see what the Fed will do next.For years, the Fed had been watching the job market for a different reason.Officials had worried that if conditions in the labor market remained too tight for too long, with employers fighting to hire and paying ever-rising wages to attract workers, it could help keep inflation faster than usual. That’s because companies with higher labor costs would probably charge more to protect profits, and workers earning more would probably spend more, fueling continued demand.But recently, job openings have come down and wage growth has abated, signals that the job market is cooling from its boil. That has caught the Fed’s attention.“At this point, we have a good labor market, but not a frothy one,” Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said in a recent speech. “Future labor market slowing could translate into higher unemployment, as firms need to adjust not just vacancies but actual jobs.”The unemployment rate has ticked up slightly this year, and officials are watching warily for a more pronounced move. Research shows that a sudden and marked uptick in unemployment is a signal of recession — a rule of thumb set out by the economist Claudia Sahm and often referred to as the “Sahm Rule.” More

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    One Obstacle for Trump’s Promises: This Isn’t the 2016 Economy

    Donald J. Trump slapped tariffs on trading partners and cut taxes in his first term. But after inflation’s return, a repeat playbook would be riskier.When Donald J. Trump became president in 2017, prices had risen roughly 5 percent over the previous four years. If he were to win the race for the White House in 2024, he would be entering office at a time when they are up 20 percent and counting.That is a critically different economic backdrop for the kind of policies — tariffs and tax cuts — that the Republican contender has put at the center of his campaign.Mr. Trump regularly blames the Biden administration for the recent price surge, but inflation has been a global phenomenon since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Supply chain problems, shifting consumer spending patterns and other quirks related to pandemic lockdowns and their aftermath collided with stimulus-fueled demand to send costs shooting higher.The years of unusually rapid inflation that resulted have changed the nation’s economic picture in important ways. Businesses are more accustomed to adjusting prices and consumers are more used to those changes than they were before the pandemic, when costs had been quiescent for decades. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve has lifted interest rates to 5.3 percent in a bid to slow demand and wrestle the situation under control.That combination — jittery inflation expectations and higher interest rates — could make many of the ideas Mr. Trump talks about on the campaign trail either riskier or more costly than before, especially at a moment when the economy is running at full speed and unemployment is very low.Mr. Trump is suggesting tax cuts that could speed up the economy and add to the deficit, potentially boosting inflation and adding to the national debt at a time when it costs a lot for the government to borrow. He has talked about mass deportations at a moment when economists warn that losing a lot of would-be workers could cause labor shortages and push up prices. He promises to ramp up tariffs across the board — and drastically on China — in a move that might sharply increase import prices.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Friday’s jobs report expected to show slowing payroll gains as concern rises about broader economy

    With signs building that the labor market is at least slowing if not something worse, the June nonfarm payrolls report takes on added significance.
    The report, to be released Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, is expected to show growth of 200,000, down from the 272,000 reported for May.
    While there are scant data signs that a recession is at hand, the trend in unemployment is generating some attention.

    Job seekers attends the JobNewsUSA.com South Florida Job Fair held at the Amerant Bank Arena on June 26, 2024 in Sunrise, Florida. 
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images

    With signs building that the labor market is at least slowing if not something worse, the June nonfarm payrolls report takes on added significance.
    Payroll gains so far in 2024 have totaled 1.24 million, down about 50,000 a month below the same period a year ago. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the report, to be released Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, to show growth of 200,000, down from the 272,000 reported for May.

    In historical terms, the pace of job gains is still solid. But there are signs bubbling underneath that conditions could be getting softer and possibly pointing at broader economic weakness down the road.
    “This is a report that’s coming at a point where there’s a little more uncertainty about the economic landscape than there has been in a few months,” said Nick Bunker, head of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Specifically, I’m thinking more about the unemployment rate, which has been slowly trending up.”
    The jobless level in May did nudge higher to 4%, the first time it hit that threshold since January 2022, up from 3.7% a year ago. The forecast is for the rate to hold there.
    Under normal circumstances, a 4% unemployment rate would be cause for celebration, not concern. However, what is catching the eye of some economists is where the rate is now compared with where it’s been over the past year.
    The May rate was 0.5 percentage point above its 12-month low of 3.5% in July 2023, potentially triggering a recession indicator called the Sahm Rule. The rule has shown consistently that whenever the unemployment rate on a three-month average eclipses its 12-month low by half a percentage point, the economy is in recession.

    While there are scant data signs that a recession is at hand, the trend in unemployment is generating some attention.
    “If the unemployment rate does what it’s been doing for the last bit of time here where it’s very slowly rising, I don’t think that means we’re at a very high risk of triggering a Sahm Rule or any sort of unemployment rate-based measure of entering recession,” Bunker said. “That being said, the probability of that happening has risen, even if it’s not the most likely outcome right now.”
    The economy has slowed in the first half of 2024. First-quarter growth as measured by gross domestic product rose at a 1.4% annualized pace, while the Atlanta Federal Reserve is tracking just 1.5% growth in the second quarter.
    There are also lingering inflation concerns that could keep the Fed on the sidelines for a while longer in terms of lowering interest rates.
    In addition to the headline payroll and unemployment numbers, market participants and economists will be watching several other key metrics.
    One other area of concern has been the divergence between the nonfarm payrolls count, as taken from establishments participating in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey, against the household count of people reporting that they’re holding jobs.
    While the establishment survey has shown payrolls increasing by about 2.8 million over the past 12 months, the household count, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, is up by just 376,000. Economists generally consider the establishment survey to be more reliable and less volatile as it encompasses a larger sample size, but the disparity has garnered some attention.
    In addition, hours worked and average hourly earnings will get some attention as gauges of inflation.
    The forecast is for a monthly paycheck gain of 0.3% and a 12-month increase of 3.9%. If the outlook holds, it will mark the first time that the annual increase is below 4% since June 2021. More

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    Apartments Could Be the Next Real Estate Business to Struggle

    Owners of some rental buildings are starting to struggle because of rising interest rates and waning demand in some once booming Sun Belt cities.It might seem like a great time to own apartment buildings.For many landlords, it is. Rents have soared in recent years because of housing shortages across much of the country and a bout of severe inflation.But a growing number of rental properties, especially in the South and the Southwest, are in financial distress. Only some have stopped making payments on their mortgages, but analysts worry that as many as 20 percent of all loans on apartment properties could be at risk of default.Although rents surged during the pandemic, the rise has stalled in recent months. In many parts of the country, rents are starting to fall. Interest rates, ratcheted higher by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation, have made mortgages much more expensive for building owners. And while homes remain scarce in many places, developers may have built too many higher-end apartments in cities that are no longer attracting as many renters as they were in 2021 and 2022, like Houston and Tampa, Fla.These problems haven’t yet turned into a crisis, because most owners of apartment buildings, known in the real estate industry as multifamily properties, haven’t fallen behind on loan payments.Only 1.7 percent of multifamily loans are at least 30 days delinquent, compared with roughly 7 percent of office loans and around 6 percent of hotel and retail loans, according to the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, an industry association whose members include lenders and investors.But many industry groups, rating agencies and research firms are worried that many more apartment loans could become distressed. Multifamily loans make up a majority of loans newly added to watch lists compiled by industry experts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More