The US economy added 222,000 new jobs in June, reversing a worrying slowdown in growth for president Donald Trump who campaigned on a promise of massive job creation.
Economists had been expecting the US to add around 178,000 over them month but the latest numbers from the bureau of labor statistics comfortably beat those estimates as healthcare and food services showed big monthly gains.
The unemployment rate moved up marginally to 4.4% but remains at lows unseen since 2001.
This month’s numbers came as economists have worried that the US economy is struggling to create large numbers of new jobs despite president Donald Trump’s pledge to create “JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!”
US employers added just 138,000 jobs in May, the third month of relatively soft growth in the jobs market, and March and April’s figures were revised down by 66,000.
Employment growth has averaged 180,000 per month thus far this year. In comparison, payroll employment growth averaged 187,000 a month in 2016 and 226,000 in 2015.
Friday’s government figures come a day after ADP, the US’s largest private payroll processor, released is latest monthly tally of job gains. The report showed jobs growth slowed last month. According to ADP the private sector added 158,000 new jobs in June, economists surveyed by Reuters had been expecting a gain of 185,000.
Small business, a leading driver of jobs growth, added just 17,000 jobs in the month with the smallest of small businesses, those employing one to 19 people, recording zero jobs added. Once again the service sector was the largest new employer.
Overall hiring may be weakening because the number of available workers has declined with the unemployment rate, now at a 16-year low. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said: “The job market continues to power forward. Abstracting from the monthly ups and downs, job growth remains a stalwart between 150,000 and 200,000. At this pace, which is double the rate of labor force growth, the tight labor market will continue getting tighter.”