June’s Labor Report Shows Health Care and Food Services Up to their Old Tricks Again
It is that time of the month again, and although I assume that many of you couldn’t contain your feverish excitement and already took a peek at it this morning, I am going to recap the monthly employment situation report for all of you now. Released today at 8:30 a.m., the June report came a little late this month, as Bureau of Labor Statistics employees were too busy grilling hot dogs and taking in fireworks displays to keep us concerned citizens up to date on our nation’s payroll data. Insensitive, I know, so I won’t keep the precious information from you a minute longer. June went a little something like this…
We saw an increase of 132,000 jobs this past month, which brought our total payroll employment to an even 138 million. This is a slight drop from May, with revised numbers indicating that we experienced an increase of 190,000 jobs two months ago. The unemployment rate remained unaffected again at 4.5 percent, which equates to roughly 6.9 million unemployed people in the United States. Between May and June, the employment-population ratio and the labor force participation rate stayed the same, standing at 63.1 percent and 66.1 percent, respectively.
The service industry eased its way to the top yet again as the main contributor to this month’s strong growth in jobs. Health care employment increased by nearly 30,000 positions in June, raising the total expansion in health care and social assistance since June 2006 to over 410,000 jobs. In particular, hospitals, residential care facilities, and nursing added the most to this month’s progress.
As I mentioned in last month’s blog, several of the prestigious universities listed on this site have numerous health care, health administration, and nursing degree programs to choose from. Our home page is easy to navigate, with the schools separated so that you can conduct state-specific searches. Links to over 30 online colleges are also located on the left hand side of the page.
Other areas that showed promise include food services and drinking places (+35,000 jobs), wholesale trade (+20,000 jobs), and government-related occupations (+40,000). Forbes.com columnist Matthew Kirdahy posted an article today that analyzes these government job openings a little more in-depth. For readers pursuing a career in state, local, or federal government, Florida Metropolitan University Online operates associate, bachelor, and master degree programs in Criminal Justice, while Kaplan University offers students the option of an associate’s in Criminal Justice, a BS in Criminal Justice, or a Terrorism/National Security Certificate.
Wages increased by another 6 cents per hour in June, which brings the national hourly earnings to an average of $17.38. The average workweek also experienced a slight boost to 33.9 hours. This means that if you are completely average, you are making about $590 a week. And that, my friends, about sums up what I set out to do.
If you are already hungry for July’s numbers, don’t worry too much, August 3 will be here before you know it, or at least before I make another speculative post about U.S. Department of Labor employees and what they do on their days off.