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HOW long ago seem the promising months of early 2012, when the American economy added jobs at a healthy 225,000 monthly clip. And how disappointing when the labour market slumped back into its now traditional spring-and-summer slump. The Bureau of Labour Statistics' June employment report, out this morning, is anticlimatic in its confirmation of the already-too-obvious: job creation is back in the rut that seems the default position for this recovery.
Employers added just 80,000 jobs in June, up negligibly from an increase of 77,000 in May and 68,000 in April. Private employment growth did a bit better once again, coming in at an 84,000 increase for the month. That compares quite unfavourably to the more than 250,000 private positions added in January and February. Government continued to drag down payroll growth, albeit it a slower pace than earlier in the year. In the year to June, private employment was up 1.9m while government at all levels slashed 169,000 jobs. Since the labour market hit a bottom in February of 2010, private employment is up 4.4m jobs while government employment is down over 500,000.
Manufacturing job growth has slowed sharply since the first quarter—unsurprising given the broad weakness in industrial activity in recent months, in America and elsewhere. Perhaps more disconcerting is the disappointing performance of employment in construction. Home prices and sales seem to have reached a bottom and commenced rising, and new permits are up strongly this year, but that has yet to translate into strong residential construction employment growth.
The household portion of the BLS survey largely echoes the establishment side; conditions are soft—far softer than they were earlier in the year or than we'd expect given the gap between potential and actual employment. The unemployment rate held steady at 8.2%. Employment and labour force growth were positive but quite modest. The American economy ought to be creating jobs at an above-trend pace; instead job creation is once more below estimations for trend employment growth.
This disappointing turn will, not unfairly, focus attention on the dismal performance of the American Congress. On June 29th, for instance, Congress managed to pass a short-term transport bill, narrowly averting a disaster that could have idled scores of ongoing projects. Yet the meagre funding in the bill will fall short of the estimated annual spending needed to maintain infrastructure at its current subpar quality, to say nothing of amounts necessary to bring it up to standard. And of course, a raft of fiscal cuts loom at the end of the year; whether or not they are allowed to fall, the Congressional battle they inspire could have a damaging effect on consumer confidence, much like last year's debt-ceiling fight.
The jobs report should shine the harshest light on the Federal Reserve, however. At its June meeting, Ben Bernanke essentially kept current policy on hold while simultaneously revealing new Fed economic projections that showed a downgrade in expectations for inflation and employment growth. Inflation is expected to come in below the Fed's stated 2% target in 2012. The latest price data show disinflation in progress, and given a worldwide slowdown in economic activity the trend is likely to continue. As this new jobs report makes clear, the Fed is falling wildly short on the employment side of its mandate; unemployment remains more than 2 percentage points above its estimation of the "natural rate" of unemployment. All the more striking, then, that the Fed is also falling ever farther short of its inflation target, as well.
The Fed next meets from July 31st to August 1st. These new jobs numbers will raise hopes for action, potentially including a third round of balance-sheet expansion via asset purchases: QE3. Recent action by other central banks—more QE from the Bank of England and rate cuts by the European Central Bank and the People's Bank of China—may also lift expectations for activity. Certainly more action is well justified by the data. But therein lies the frustration; the data have suggested a need for more Fed action for some time. If the Fed has managed to resist so far, why wouldn't it hold out still longer?
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