Ahead of this morning's new jobs report, most projections pointed to totals of roughly 200,000 new jobs last month. Those projections turned out to be correct.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that the economy added 213,000 jobs in June, while the unemployment rate inched a little higher, climbing from 3.8% to 4%.
Meanwhile, the revisions for the two previous months -- April and May -- looked encouraging, with a combined gain of 37,000 jobs as compared to previous BLS reports.
In terms of the larger context, this morning's data points to 1.287 million jobs created so far in 2018, which is evidence of a healthy job market, and which is an improvement on the totals from the first six months of 2016 and 2017. That said, this year's tally is still short of the totals from the first six months of 2014 and 2015.
Above you'll find the chart I run every month, showing monthly changes in total jobs since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction: red columns point to monthly changes under the Bush and Trump administrations, while blue columns point to monthly job changes under the Obama administration.
Update: Here’s another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession.
