President Biden on Friday touted the U.S. job growth, which unexpectedly accelerated in July, and said more people are working than ever in American history, and used jobs numbers to prove that he has kept his campaign promise to rebuild the middle class. The Labor Department said in its monthly payroll report released Friday that 528,000 jobs were added in July, surpassing the 250,000 jobs forecast by Refinitiv economists. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, the lowest level since the COVID-19 epidemic began more than two years ago.
The unemployment rate is at 3.5%, the lowest it's been in more than 50 years. Biden said that more people are working than at any point in American history. That provides millions of families with the dignity and peace of mind that a paycheck provides.
Biden said that it was the result of my economic plan to build the economy from the bottom up and middle out. I ran for president to rebuild the middle class, but there is more work to do, but today s jobs report shows we are making significant progress for working families. The labor market is facing twin threats of scorching inflation and rising interest rates, so job growth did not faze fears of a slowdown in hiring.
The U.S. has replaced all of the jobs that were lost during the Pandemic.
In July, the job gains were broad-based, with leisure and hospitality leading the way in hiring, adding 96,000 new workers. Professional businesses services had 89,000 health care 70,000 and government 57,000 construction contributed 32,000 new jobs, while manufacturing added 30,000.
The Federal Reserve hikes interest rates at the fastest pace in decades to wrestle inflation under control, which is a reason why there is an increase in hiring. Last week, the Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced in the nation, fell by 0.6% in the three month period from April to June. That was followed by a decline of 1.6% in the first three months of the year.
With back-to-back declines in GDP, the economy meets the technical criteria for a recession.
The strong jobs market has so far prevented the U.S. from falling into a downturn, but job growth momentum is expected to cool in coming months as companies cut staff in order to accommodate for lower demand, according to many economists.