The jobs report this morning shows that the U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in the month of July.
The new report means that the U.S. economy has added 1,074,000 jobs since President Trump took office.
The U.S. has added nearly 450,000 new jobs in the past two months, knocking the unemployment rate back down to a 16-year low of 4.3%.
Employment gains in July easily surpassed the 175,000 estimate of economists polled by MarketWatch. Stock futures pointed to a higher opening for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.03% Yields on Treasurys also rose as did the value of the dollar DXY, +0.64%
It is possible to entertain the notion that MarketWatch is attempting to downplay this remarkable by presenting it as–ho hum–merely the continuation of a recovery:
The steady flow of new jobs, however, has added fresh fuel to a recovery that is one of the longest on record. More Americans working and bringing home paychecks has spawned higher consumer spending and kept the economy on an even keel.
President Trump quickly seized on the report, calling it “excellent.” A pro-business Trump administration has promised to slash regulations, cut taxes and take other steps to boost hiring and entice more foreign companies to set up operations in the U.S.
CNN is less restrained–the network just flat out gave former President Obama credit for Trump's economy:
[The 1.074,00] essentially matches the 1,084,000 jobs created during President Barack Obama's last six months in office. Both round to 1.1 million, and the 10,000 difference is well within the margin of error of the Labor Department estimate.
Of course, Trump's six-month record is far better than Obama's first six months, when 3.4 million jobs were lost. That's because Obama was sworn in during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, when the economy was hemorrhaging jobs.
By contrast, Obama handed Trump an economy that was close to what economists consider full employment. The unemployment rate on Inauguration Day was 4.8%, and it has fallen since then, to 4.3% in July.
At full employment, businesses have an extremely difficult time finding available, qualified workers to fill job openings.
In fact, if Obama left a problem for Trump, it wasn't that the economy was too weak — it was that the labor market was almost too strong. Employers may well be hiring faster if they weren't having so much trouble finding the workers they need.
So it wasn't reductions in regulations and red tape and the prospect that there will not be a tax hike? Wish Obama could have done it for his own administration!
Any job added is a good thing, but this upswing appears to be not merely service sector jobs:
Professional firms, health-care providers and restaurants accounted for the bulk of new jobs in July, the government reported Friday. Companies continue to find ways to beef up staff despite chronic complaints about a shortage of skilled workers.
Wage growth has not been as robust as might be hoped but it is at 3 per cent, which is some slight improvement.
In other good news, the trade deficit dropped.
Thanks, President Obama.