July jobs report shows another summer slowdown
Today brought the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed the economy added 162,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent. That’s about 20,000 fewer than the consensus among economists called for before the report was issued, and job-creation numbers were also revised downward for May and June — by 26,000 — meaning that average monthly job gains are at 189,000.
“This was a bad jobs report,” said FT Alphaville’s Cardiff Garcia. “It shows that we’ve had, especially given the revisions, yet another summer slowdown. Now it’s milder than the summer slowdowns of the last couple of years — and it’s still pretty close to the trends we’ve seen in the last year and a half. But that trend itself is really dissatisfying. It’s inadequate and it’s not enough to get the economy accelerating the way we’d like it to.”
Also this week, Fabrice Tourre was found liable on six counts of civil securities fraud. He was the first individual to be found liable from the financial crisis, but with the statute of limitations coming up, he might also be the last.
“This case is really disappointing. I mean, the SEC caught the small fish and let the big fish swim away, and that’s been a consistent outcome,” said Bloomberg Government’s Nela Richardson. “Banks are just able to pay these huge enormous sums and keep on doing what they’ve been doing, and that’s disappointing.”
And we’ve got our weekend #longreads — picks from our Wrappers of what you should be reading this weekend.
Nela Richardson chose:
- Atul Gawande explains why some of society’s best ideas never catch on (listen to the Marketplace interview with Gawande here).
- Emily Esfahani Smith explains why meaning is healthier than happiness.
- Brad Stone asks whether Marissa Mayer can save Yahoo (along with a cool graphic of the Yahoo CEO walking on water).
And Cardiff Garcia picked:
- An appreciation of George Mitchell, the father of fracking.
- In the violent favelas of Brazil.
- George Saunders on regret and the failures of kindness.
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