The U.S. labor market continues humming along this summer. On Friday, we’ll get the latest BLS
jobs report for July -- here’s what we’ll be watching for:
- 144,000 new jobs added to nonfarm payrolls in June;
- Unemployment steady at 4.4 percent;
- Average hourly wages up 2.3 percent from one year ago.
- Labor force participation rate down slightly to 62.7 percent.
Despite ongoing political turmoil in the U.S. Congress, fears of automation-related job losses, and continued weakness in the retail and energy sectors, the U.S. economy remains on track in terms of steady job creation and low unemployment.
The economy has added an average of 180,000 new jobs monthly to payrolls so far this year -- a healthy pace that’s well above the roughly 100,000 jobs per month needed to maintain full employment. July marks 97 months since the beginning of the current economic expansion, well beyond the average length of 58 months since World War II. Despite historically sluggish 2.6 percent economic growth and rising Fed interest rates, there’s no end in sight for today’s good economic times.
Weakening Wage Picture
One concerning trend is the weakening overall wage picture in the U.S. According to Glassdoor’s
Local Pay Reports, average pay growth has slowed dramatically in recent months. As of July, median base pay for full time workers edged up just 1.2 percent from a year ago -- the slowest pace we’ve recorded in three years. U.S. base pay growth has slowed for six consecutive months according to salaries on Glassdoor, despite falling unemployment and near-record numbers of unfilled jobs.
This troubling absence of across-the-board wage gains means the prosperity being generated by today’s robust economy is not being as widely shared among U.S. workers as in previous eras. The latest figures from Glassdoor show that while pay is rising fast for many in-demand roles at the top of the pay scale such as
software engineer, as well as for many lower-paying roles affected by state and local minimum wage increases such as
barista, many middle-skill jobs such as
office manager and
retail buyer are experiencing flat and often declining year-over-year pay.
Hiring Remains Strong
One of our best real-time indicators of hiring are online
job postings available on Glassdoor. Trends in job postings provide a powerful window into the pulse of hiring, in as close to real time as possible.
As of July, there were roughly 5.7 million open jobs available in the U.S. on Glassdoor. That’s up from about 5.0 million a year ago. This upward trend in hiring shows no indication of slowing yet. Top industries hiring today include healthcare -- which alone has nearly 1 million jobs open across the nation -- retail, restaurant and food services, technology and professional services, and transportation and logistics.
In July, we expect to see a slower pace of job growth of 144,000 new jobs added to payrolls -- mainly because it’s normal for monthly job gains to slow as the economy reaches full employment. But overall, the nation’s economy remains on a slow and steady growth path, and we expect to see encouraging signs of a healthy job market in Friday’s BLS report.
To speak with Dr. Andrew Chamberlain about this month’s jobs report or labor market trends, contact pr [at] glassdoor [dot] com. For the latest economics and labor market updates, subscribe to email alerts here and follow @adchamberlain. 
