What To Make Of The Latest Jobs Report: 'It's A Mixed Picture'

Total payroll employment rose by 850,000 in June, according to Friday's jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The most notable gains occurred in the leisure, hospitality, education, professional and retail industries.

Nonetheless, the unemployment rate slightly increased from its May rate to 5.9%.

What The Jobs Numbers Mean: While some people are still hesitant to return to work because of the pandemic, individuals are still coming back — and at a relatively fast clip — compared with the previous recession, according to RSM Chief Economist Joe Brusuelas.

The U.S. is now on pace to recover all jobs lost from the recession in two years. It took more than six years to accomplish the same in the wake of the Great Recession.

The country has been adding an average of 500,000 jobs for each of the last several months.

In part, this is because the fiscal aid from the Biden administration has “put households in the best space they’ve been in in decades,” said Brusuelas.

Consequently, the public “should see material evidence of people venturing out and doing things they haven’t been able to do for over a year.”

The strongest comebacks have been occurring in lower income sectors, including leisure and hospitality, as well as the food and beverage industries, said Brusuelas.

Wages are rising: the average hourly earnings for all employees rose by 10 cents to $30.40.

Why Jobs Are 'Mixed Picture': But not all see such a rosy picture. Despite the strong jobs growth, Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian is not as optimistic about the jobs supply meeting demand. 

"As such, it’s a mixed picture overall that, unfortunately, insufficiently counters concerns about the ability of the labor market to match quickly the supply of workers to what is booming demand," he wrote in an email to Benzinga. 

While still more popular than before the pandemic occurred, one note of interest is remote work: it declined slightly from a 16.6% share in May to 14.4% in June.