June Jobs: Five Things You Need to Know

Another summer, another jobs bummer. Payrolls rose by only 80,000 in June, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday morning. The national unemployment rate held at 8.2 percent. It was the second straight disappointing month for employment growth (economists surveyed by Bloomberg had been expecting a gain of 100,000). More worrying is that it’s the second year in a row that a spring spurt has jumped the rails.

Many of the key June numbers were basically unchanged from May: The unemployment rate; the total number of unemployed people, 12.7 million; the long-term unemployed (more than 27 weeks), 5.4 million (41.9 percent of all jobless). But that’s the problem. Last month’s report, it was widely agreed, was a disaster: Only 69,000 jobs were added (since revised to 77,000), the lowest gain in a year. The implications for President Barack Obama are obviously not good; voters may or may not be watching the numbers closely on a holiday week, but with only four more jobs reports before the election, the chances to convince them the economy is on the upswing are dwindling.