The U.S. added more jobs than expected in June, but a slowing trend in hiring is also evident as new data emerges about the state of the economy. CBS MoneyWatch correspondent Kelly O'Grady reports.

Washington

The United States added 147,000 jobs in June, surpassing expectations of 110,000, while the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1%. Despite the positive headline figure, analysts note that job growth has slowed, with the first half of the year averaging about 150,000 new jobs per month—the slowest start since the financial crisis, excluding the pandemic year.

Much of the recent job growth came from government positions, particularly at the state and local levels, rather than the private sector. Private sector job gains dropped significantly from May to June. The White House celebrated the continued job additions, but experts caution that the reliance on government hiring and the slowdown in private sector growth present a more mixed picture for the economy.

White House reacts to June jobs report that beat expectations

All right, this is important for you. Other big stories we're tracking, of course, include the economy. The latest jobs report was just released a short time ago, and, drumroll please, it's better than expected. 100, someone actually tried to do the drumroll here. That did not sound pleasant at all. 147,000 jobs added in June. Unemployment, the unemployment rate is relatively unchanged at 4.1%. So what does this all mean? Here with me now in Studio 55 is CBS News' Money Watch correspondent Kelly O'Grady, who did not try to do the drumroll, that was not her, but she had to listen to it anyway. Good to have you. When I looked at these numbers, it seemed like good news because it was more than expected, but if we kind of zoom out and look at the bigger picture, you're the expert, what does this tell you about the state of the economy? So yes, better than expected. There was a lot of concern that this was actually gonna be a really low number and it would put pressure on the Fed to cut at the end of July when they next meet to discuss interest rates. Here's the thing, it is better than expected, but we are still seeing a slowing of growth. We added 147, we were expecting to add 110. That is a big beat. But if you zoom out, the first six months, we've added on average each month about 150,000 jobs. That is the slowest start that we have seen to the year in the labor market. If you go back to the financial crisis, but you strip out 2020, right? That was a really bad year at the beginning of COVID. But, you know, Press Secretary Levitt, she went onto social media and was celebrating this. And I don't wanna underscore that, right? This is a big win that we are continuing to add jobs. But I will note when you peel back the onion, it is a little bit more of a mixed bag. There was another interesting data point yesterday. I think it's from the ADP. This is like a payroll agency. They predicted, I think, a plus of 90,000 jobs or so, but actually reported a loss of about 33,000. That's just another small data point. But what does that tell us about the bigger picture? Are there certain areas of the economy which are struggling right now? So I don't wanna say struggling so much, but we're seeing a continued slowdown in the private sector. And this is really important. This is what I meant with the mixed bag. And by the way, that ADP report really focuses on the private sector. So what I'm about to say comports with that. We only saw about half of the jobs this month, or in June, added from the private sector. Half of them came from government jobs, state and local, not federal, right? Because we've had all of those doge layoffs. But when you add so much of your growth from the government, that is not sustainable. You wanna see that growth in the private sector. And we saw a huge slowdown. I believe we were in the 130s in May. We were down to 73 or 74 jobs added, 74,000 in the private sector in June. So that's a big drop off. And that comports with what we are hearing from a lot of the businesses that we talk to, that maybe they're not firing, but they're not adding jobs. They're not replacing jobs when people step away. So that's why I say this is a mixed bag. Headline number is great. The Fed is not gonna cut in July, even though the president is pushing them to. But we're really gonna be monitoring that government and private sector mix. Yeah, no, it's a good reality check too, because it's not just about any single data point. It's the rate over time. Always great to have you here on this. Kelly O'Grady, thanks so much.

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Kyiv

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