WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The pace of U.S. hiring slumped sharply in June after several months of robust [ed. so sez them] gains, the government reported on Friday, as employers added fewer than half the number of payroll jobs forecast and hours of work shrank.

The Labor Department (news - web sites) said only 112,000 jobs were created last month, far fewer than the 250,000 that Wall Street analysts had anticipated. April and May new-job totals were revised down, to 324,000 and 235,000 respectively, from 346,000 and 248.000. [ed. that's 24,000 for April and 13,000 for May worse than they thought]

The unemployment rate was unchanged, as expected, at 5.6 percent. [ed. the good news, I suppose, and I guarantee is going to be the headline at most news outlets.]

June still represented a 10th straight month of job growth that has added about 1.5 million workers to payrolls [ed. yeah, but they keep slipping off again, don't they?], but the unexpectedly steep slowdown last month may make it harder for President Bush (news - web sites) to campaign for re-election in November on a claim of accelerating economic momentum. [ed. here's that bad-girl snarkiness of mine popping up]

In a sign of broader weakness, the average workweek eased to 33.6 hours in June from 33.8 in May, the shortest since a matching level in December.

All of June's job growth in service industries. The manufacturing sector lost 11,000 jobs, a reversal after four straight months in which factories had added jobs following years of decline.
...
The timing, two days after the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) boosted short-term U.S. interest rates by a quarter percentage point and cited the need to check inflation in a quickening [ed. snarf] economy, was striking. Analysts said it meant, at a minimum, that the U.S. central bank likely would not face pressure to push rates up more quickly than in the quarter point moves now anticipated.

- posted by Cynthia @ 9:33 AM | | | Link |