Official economic data is finally catching up to the fact that Americans have been feeling lousy about the job market for months.
The U.S. economy added just 73,000 nonfarm jobs in July, according to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below market expectations and the roughly 80,000 benchmark for a healthy economy to support the growing population, says Laura Ullrich, Indeed’s director of economic research for North America.
A lot of economists are also paying attention to the latest report, which helps show a monthly picture of where jobs are growing and shrinking, because it downwardly revised its May and June numbers to show the economy added just 33,000 jobs over the two-month period, compared to earlier estimates of 291,000 jobs.
Following the release of Friday’s jobs report, President Donald Trump fired BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer, suggesting without evidence that the weaker-than-expected report had been “rigged” by federal workers bent on sabotaging the president.
Revisions are a normal part of the data collection process, and estimates move up or down to become more precise with additional payroll data up to several months after a report releases, Ullrich tells CNBC Make It.
