> BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY JULY 9, 2001:
>
> The U.S. economy lost another 114, 000 jobs in June, most of them in
> manufacturing, and the unemployment rate edged up to 4.5 percent in May,
> the Labor Department said July 6 in a report that reinforced the view that
> the economy is still in a slowdown. The non farm payroll losses were much
> higher than economists had predicted, although the Bureau of Labor
> Statistics revised up the May data to show 8,000 jobs were added that
> month, rather than 19,000 lost as originally estimated. The April numbers
> were also revised up, making the payroll reduction for that month 165,000
> rather than 182,000....The BLS also said average hourly earnings in June
> rose 4 cents to $14.29 from $14.25 in May, seasonally adjusted. Average
> weekly earnings in the private sector rose $1.37 to $490.15, an increase
> of 0.28 percent for the month (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
>
> The nation's employers cut 114,000 jobs in June, mostly in manufacturing
> but in other sectors as well, the Labor Department said yesterday,
> throwing cold water on recent reports suggesting that the economy was
> begining to recover. Beyond manufacturing, the weak economy finally took
> its toll on the dynamic service sector, the great source of new jobs in
> the 1990's. Employment in the sector fell in June and for the second
> quarter as a whole - the first quarterly decline since 1958. The
> unemployment rate ticked up to 4.5 percent in June from 4.4 percent in
> May, but would have been even higher if so many people had not left the
> labor force in the spring, declining even to look for work (The New York
> Times, July 7, page A1).
>
> A bad employment report for June wasn't enough to convince economists that
> the bottom will fall out of the economy this summer. That is because
> other gauges of the economy released last week continued to show that
> consumer spending has held up through the slowdown. With strong, if not
> stellar, auto sales and new orders for durable goods, it has become harder
> for doomsayers to predict an outright recession. Even weekly unemployment
> insurance-claims suggested that the labor market's decline in early June
> had slowed by the end of last month (The Wall Street Journal, page A2).
>
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