US non-farm payrolls declined sharply by 131,000 in July, far below consensus, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday.
Private payrolls rose 71,000 — below the consensus — perhaps providing a better measure of the employment situation given large census lay-offs.
Flashes from Bloomberg:
*U.S. JULY PAYROLLS FALL 131,000; JOBLESS RATE HOLDS AT 9.5%
*PRIVATE PAYROLLS RISE 71,000; GOVERNMENT JOBS DROP 202,000
*EXCLUDING CENSUS WORKERS, JULY PAYROLLS INCREASE BY 12,000
From the Bureau release:
Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.
The civilian labor force participation rate (64.6 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.4 percent) were essentially unchanged in July; however, these measures have declined by 0.6 percentage point and 0.4 point, respectively, since April.
Economists polled by Reuters and Bloomberg had predicted a fall of 65,000 in overall NFPs for July. The huge revision for June’s NFPs is worrying as well:
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised from +433,000 to +432,000, and the change for June was revised from -125,000 to -221,000.
Note the soft numbers for average work week and average hourly earnings too:
In July, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours. The manufacturing workweek for all employees increased by 0.1 hour to 40.1 hours, following a decrease of 0.5 hour in June. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.1 hour to 33.5 hours in July.
Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 4 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $22.59 in July. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.8 percent. In July, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $19.04.
While in market reaction — it’s all about another record-low yield in the 10-year Treasury:
And this was the sustained action in the 5-year:
