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CNN The U.S. Labor Department reports monthly on the state of U.S. Jobs. One of the key indicators of job growth is the overall increase in new jobs added to payrolls. Last March, analysts predicted a steady rise in jobs added to payrolls throughout the spring and summer months. While there was an incline throughout March, April, and May, the June numbers fell short of analyst expectations by a large margin. This month, the numbers fell even further from expectations. According to the U.S. Labor department, only 32,000 new jobs were added to payrolls in July, and analysts predicted that the number would be as high as 243,000. This increase was the smallest since December, when payrolls rose by only 8,000.
Experts claim that rising energy prices and the expectations that short-term interest rates will rise has hurt the economy. While this leading indicator of economic health was not encouraging, other economic indicators showed signs of health. The unemployment rate dropped by one point to 5.5$, and the minimum average hourly wage increased by 5 cents to $15.70. The average number of hours worked in a week also rose 0.1, to 33.7.
In these highly charged political times, Democrats have quickly jumped on these statistics to show that the Bush administration hasn’t been effective in jumpstarting the economy.
