The June unemployment report, released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was more of the same from the previous two months, with just 80,000 jobs added to the economy. For the second quarter of 2012, we averaged just 75,000 new jobs per month, after averaging 226,000 jobs added per month in the first quarter. The overall unemployment rate was unchanged, at 8.2 percent.
No particular sector showed a great number of new jobs added - or jobs lost, for that matter. The biggest addition was in professional and business services, which saw 47,000 new jobs in June. But even there, 25,000 of those jobs were in temporary help services, which is hardly a spot where growth is encouraging.
Economists estimate that the economy should be creating about 125,000 jobs per month just to keep pace with population growth. A rate closer to 75,000 jobs per month is a recipe for stagnation. All told, the number of unemployed people in the country remains at 12.7 million.
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