High demand led to surprisingly strong labor growth in June, with the US economy defying predictions and adding 372,000 jobs.
According to a Friday Bureau of Labor Statistics announcement, the number was far greater than the 265,000 figure economists had been expecting, but slightly less than the 384,000 jobs added in May.
The additional job numbers puts the unemployment rate at a low of 3.6 percent, only slightly higher than what it was before the pandemic, the Financial Times reported.
The data surprised economists who had predicted a slowdown in job growth, with most of the jobs shortages during the pandemic resolved.
Many of the new hires were in professional and business service jobs (74,000), followed by the leisure and hospitality industries (67,000).
Another 40,000 were in the transportation and warehousing industries, with 30,000 in manufacturing.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said in a statement that the country is in a good position to combat high inflation and worries of a looming recession.
“No country is better positioned than America to bring down inflation, without giving up all of the economic gains we have made over the last 18 months,” he said.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)