5th Aug,2011 U.S. Economy gains 117,000 jobs in July.
The U.S. added 117,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 9.1%, the government reported Friday, in a better-than-expected report that might provide temporary calm to jittery financial markets.
On Wall Street, investors greeted the news with immediately positive results, as stock-index futures erased their early-morning losses.
“The report will reduce fears that the U.S. is heading toward recession,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
Yet while employers hired more workers than economists expected, the gain wasn’t big enough to put a dent in the overall, negative labor-market trend. The jobless rate has stayed above 8% for 30 straight months, the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
During times of rapid growth, the U.S. typically adds at least 200,000 jobs a month, and much larger increases would be required for months on end to yank the unemployment rate back down to pre-recession levels.
The rate of hiring in July wasn’t even enough to absorb the natural increase in the labor force, which requires about 125,000 new jobs a month.
“We won’t have an immediate sell-off in the markets,” said Chris Kichurchak, vice president of Strategic Wealth Partners in Seven Hills, Ohio. “Unfortunately, the increase is not big enough.”
Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected the U.S. to add a seasonally adjusted 75,000 jobs in July, with the unemployment holding steady at 9.2%. The payroll data does not include farm workers.
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