June 2012 Employment Report

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) non-farm payroll employment continued to edge up in June (+80,000), and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.2 percent. Professional and business services added jobs, and employment in other major industries changed little over the month. Government employment shrank by 4,000. The change in total non-farm payroll employment for April was revised from +77,000 to +68,000, and the change for May was revised from +69,000 to +77,000.
 

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As we have been pointing out for quite some time, employment is converging with the previous peak at a slower pace than any prior recession going back to 1973. The economy still has 4.94 million fewer jobs than at the January 2008 peak.
 

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The number of people not in the labor force rose by 34,000 in June, within 430,000 of the peak set back in April. The ratio of employed persons to the entire population continued moving sideways.
 

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The civilian labor force participation rate (the share of the population 16 years and older working or seeking work) was unchanged in June, at 63.8 percent. At the same time, the annual percentage increase in average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees ticked up to 1.49 percent. But with the price index for urban consumers rising at a 1.7 percent annual pace, wages are falling in real terms (i.e., wage increases are not keeping up with price inflation).
 

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Full-time employment rose by 361,000 jobs, but part-time employment also rose by 112,000. The declining trend for part-time employment had appeared to be strengthening (especially if viewed from January 2010), but the last several months of data call that trend into question.