U.S. private payrolls growth slows; jobless claims rise

[DonViejo]

Source: Reuters



By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON

U.S. private employers hired fewer workers than expected in June and applications for unemployment benefits last week increased for a third straight week, pointing to some loss of momentum in job growth as the labor market nears full employment.

Those signs were also evident in another report on Thursday showing growth in services industry employment slowing in June even as the sector, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, continued to expand at a healthy clip.

The moderation in job gains likely reflects difficulties by employers finding suitable workers amid an unemployment rate that is at a 16-year low. Even so, the labor market remains strong and tightening conditions could allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again later this year.

"The slowdown in hiring, in our view, is a function of the difficulty in hiring workers," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York. "Companies remain very reluctant to lay off workers and this is a continued sign of the tightness of the labor market."

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN19R1U6

[lark]

1. Wonder how drumpf will spin this as winning?

How will he make the slow down the fault of the Dems? Just wait, he'll try to find a way. Well, either that or he'll just say the data is fake, put out by people out to get him. SMH

[KRISITNA]

7. It'll be the resistance's fault, by not leaving him alone and letting him do his job

[grantcart]

2. In part due to Trump's tax policies freezing construction of affordable housing

http://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/535578445/affordable-housing-market-hurt-by-tax-overhaul-uncertainty

Here is a sample

quote
RIOS: That $8 billion federal tax credit, known as LIHTC, is used to finance 9 out of 10 affordable units built in the United States. Here's how it used to work. A developer, like Bart Mitchell, would be awarded a million dollars in tax credits. He'd sell them to a bank for roughly a million dollars in financing. And the bank would use the credits to save money on Tax Day. But when President Trump was elected, everything changed.

MITCHELL: On November 9, there were investors saying, we may not want to proceed with tax credit investments for the next many months. We may pull out projects that you thought we were committed to.
unquote

When people wonder why President Obama was so cautious before he announced a specific policy it was because he understood how complex and interconnected our financial systems are. Take out a brick here and a wall over there collapses.

The one thing that business needs the most is predictability, certainty. You cannot expect people/companies to risk money in an uncertain environment when a small change in policy might mean substantial losses.

Call it the incompetence tax, the incompetence recession. Not based on a particular policy but simply undermining policies that have worked for years.

[Igel]

8. It's speculation.

They think funding will be cut.

They suspect tax rates will go down.

They are afraid this will happen or are concerned that will happen.

So far, not much has happened.

It's the uncertainty that's the problem.

It was the problem with any new health-care bill. It was the problem when the ACA was still in the works (although nobody wanted to admit it then, it was a problem). It was a problem in late 2008 and 2009.

Whether or not Obama had the awesome insight to know how all the bits and pieces of the financial system fit together--I neither make my side all light and brilliance nor their side all dark and evil--his advisors had to know that uncertainty in markets was death. (He also probably realized right off the bat that secrecy and buy-in from staff was good: put together a finished proposal and plop it in public and it's likely to go through. Pull on its pieces and it gets worse, and others have to sort out how to make it work, typically in a short time frame; moreover, the staff will both defend it, since they feel empowered and important, and both defend it and be slow in giving information that's needed for revising it. They're not employees, they're co-regents, and this is true for any hierarchy.)

[Gothmog]

3. President Obama left Trump with a great economy and trump is killing it

[sandensea]

5. It's the Trump slump all right.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard some Trumpkin mentioned that "the economy is SO much better now" - hell, I'd have enough to give the old economy a good kick in the rear.

[KRISITNA]

4. MAKE AMERICA JOBLESS AND HOMELESS AGAIN

[Skittles]

6. offshoring is picking up speed

"US-BASED" work can now go to Puerto Rico