Closely watched US jobs report likely to show hiring slowed in June
The steady slowdown in U S hiring likely continued in June as President Donald Trump s arrangement wars federal hiring freeze and immigration crackdown weighed on the American job domain When the Labor Department on Thursday releases job numbers for last month they re expected to show that businesses establishment agencies and nonprofits added jobs in June down from in May according to a survey of forecasters by the figures firm FactSet The unemployment rate is expected to have ticked up to which would be the highest since October but still low enough to suggest that bulk American workers continue to enjoy job assurance The U S job domain has cooled considerably from red-hot days of - when the economic activity bounced back with unexpected strength from COVID- lockdowns and companies were desperate for workers So far this year employers have added an average jobs a month down from in and an average from through Hiring decelerated after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate times in and But the commercial sector did not collapse defying widespread predictions that the higher borrowing costs would cause a recession Companies kept hiring just at a more modest pace But the job realm increasingly looks under strain A survey published Wednesday by the payroll processor ADP detected that private companies cut jobs last month Though layoffs continue to be rare a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month disclosed ADP chief economist Nela Richardson The ADP numbers frequently differ from the Labor Department s official job count Employers are now contending with fallout from Trump s policies especially his aggressive use of import taxes tariffs Mainstream economists say that tariffs raise prices for businesses and consumers alike and make the business sector less efficient by reducing competition They also invite retaliatory tariffs from other countries hurting U S exporters The erratic way that Trump has rolled out his tariffs announcing and then suspending them then coming up with new ones has left businesses bewildered Manufacturers responding to a survey published this week by the Institute for Supply Management complained that they and their customers were reluctant to make decisions until they understood where Trump s tariffs would end up That whiplash has to stop and it has to stay stopped declared Susan Spence chair of the ISM s manufacturing survey committee Trump s assault on the federal bureaucracy could also show up in June s job overview Nancy Vanden Houten lead U S economist at Oxford Economics expects federal jobs dropped by last month reflecting a hiring freeze voluntary quits and retirements For now she wrote in a commentary Wednesday court rulings have put massive federal layoffs on hold The president s deportations and the threat of them also are likely to start having an impact on the job sphere by driving immigrants out of the job sphere In May the U S labor force those working and looking for work fell by the biggest drop in a year and a half Source
