New Data Shows June Job Growth Falling Well Below Initial Projections 

New data released by the Labor Department on Thursday revealed that job growth fell well below expectations in June.

The Washington Post reports that 57,000 new jobs were created, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%. The drop in unemployment isn’t tied to people finding new jobs, so much as it is that people are leaving the labor market. 

The Labor Department said that nearly 750,000 people left the job market last month. That could be retirements, or people just giving up looking for a job. Economists initially expected 100,000 new jobs to be added in June, so the actual number is significantly below that.

“Broadly, we are still very much in a low-momentum labor market,” Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s head of economics for the Americas, told the Washington Post. “There aren’t consistent, robust gains across the economy.”

Making matters worse, the Labor Department also revised the job growth numbers for April and May downward by a combined 74,000. With numbers like that, it’s no surprise that half of Americans say they’re worse off financially than a year ago. It’s also, sadly, not a surprise that Black people are disproportionately impacted by the weakening labor market, even if they have degrees. 

“People’s purchasing power has diminished,” Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told the Washington Post. “That’s not only harmful to workers and their family’s ability to afford their basic necessities, but that means less demand for goods and services, which is what drives the economy.” 

If you’ve had the misfortune of job hunting over the last few years, you’d know that it is probably one of the worst times ever to look for a new job. It feels like every week, another company announces a massive wave of layoffs, which only adds to the competition. If you just take a cursory look at jobs on LinkedIn, it’s not uncommon for jobs to have over 100 applicants. The dire job market has led to the rise of job-hugging, in which people have abandoned ambitions for better jobs or even just jobs in favor of job security. 

Listen, as a man who’s been laid off and experienced the brute force of the United States economy, I get it. I work two jobs with no plans to leave of my own accord because I like being able to pay my bills and have a little change left over to catch a movie. 

So what is President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress doing to address the weakening job market? Absolutely nothing, of course! While there was a glimmer of hope, with Congress passing a bipartisan housing bill with some of the most robust housing reforms in decades, Trump has refused to sign it until Congress passes the unpopular SAVE America Act. 

Despite running a campaign focused on lowering prices and shifting the blame to Black and brown people for all of the nation’s problems, Trump has had little interest in improving the economy for working-class citizens. As the Iran war continued to raise the price of gas and goods, Trump said with his whole chest that he didn’t take into account how his handling of the war would impact people’s financial well-being. Last month, Trump said the affordable housing bill, which addresses one of the major contributors to the cost-of-living crisis, is “a big yawn.”

So yeah, the job market ain’t great, things are still expensive, and it doesn’t look like anyone who has any degree of power in this country is going to do anything about it. I love it here, y’all. 

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The Rise Of Job-Hugging: Why Gen Z Workers Are Clinging To Current Roles