This morning’s Non-Farm Payroll showed only 18,000 new jobs were created in the month of June. This was far below forecasts calling for upwards of 100,000 new positions. The weak pace of job creation failed to offset job losses and pushed the unemployment rate up by one tenth of a percentage point to 9.2 percent.
“Firms are hesitant to commit to taking on new employees when customer demand is uncertain,†Guy LeBas, chief fixed- income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said before the report. ‘It suggests consumer demand is sputtering. We’ll see downwardly revised third-quarter forecasts.â€
Source: Bloomberg
