Forecasts were much too optimistic for the June employment numbers. The labor market lost 467,000 jobs last month, pushing the unemployment rate up one-tenth to 9.5%, its highest level in 26 years. Analysts had been looking for just 325,000 lost jobs, following a loss of 322,000 in May.
“Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction,” said the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the unemployment rate has surged by 4.6 percentage points, adding 7.2 million people to the unemployed list.
The unemployment rate for adult men is 10.0%, for adult women it is 7.6%. Teenagers have an unemployment rate of 24%. The jobless rate for whites is 8.7%, for blacks it is 14.7%, for Hispanics it is 12.2% ― all were little changed from May.
Job Losses by Sector:
- Goods-producing: -223k
- Construction: -79k
- Manufacturing: -136k
- Service-Sector: -244k
- Retail Trade: -21k
- Professional Services: -118k
- Education/Healthcare: +34k
- Leisure/Hospitality: -18k
- Government -52k
Analyst reactions were aptly pessimistic. TD Strategist Millan Mulraine called the report "unequivocally weak" and "very ugly".
"Not only does it suggest that the pace of job losses in the U.S. remains very high, it bucks the trend of four consecutive months of improvement in the pace of job losses," he said. "Moreover, with conditions in the U.S. economy continuing to be very weak, there is little to suggest that a turnaround in U.S. labour market conditions is on the horizon."
Elsewhere in the report, average weekly hours hit a cycle low at 33.0 hours, and wage growth was nonexistent during the month but up 2.7% compared to last year.
Released at the same time were the latest Jobless Claims numbers for the final week of June. They weren't pretty either. Initial claims in the week came in at 614,000, marking the 22nd straight week above the 600k threshold.
Meanwhile, the number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 53k in the week ending June 20 to 6.70 million.
“This is the third time in 2009 that the continuing claims data has declined on a weekly basis, though that is likely a mix of people having their benefits expire and some slight job creation,” commented Ian Pollick, strategist at TD Securities.
After the two labor releases, stock futures extended their losses: S&P 500 futures fell 11.1 points to 908.10, Nasdaq futures fell 9.5 points to 1,468.50, and Dow futures fell 109 points to 8,339.