Headline payrolls a bit light but other pockets of softness too

Payrolls in July grew by 187k and that was just below the estimate of 200k. The private sector contributed 172k of these jobs (ADP said it was 324k) and the private sector June figure was revised down to 128k from 149k (ADP said it was 455k). The two prior months in totality were revised down by a combined 49k so taken together the the jobs data was a bit light relative to expectations. The household survey saw an increase of 268k and when combined with the 152k person rise in the labor force combined to drop the unemployment rate by one tenth m/o/m to 3.5%. The all encompassing U6 rate fell by 2 tenths to 6.7% after rising by a like amount in June. 

Job leavers as a % of the unemployed jumped up again to 14.6% from 13.2% and back near the recent highs. 

Also pointing to a light number, hours worked shrunk back to 34.3 from 34.4 where no change was expected. That matches the lowest since 2011 not including Covid. Also, the birth/death model added a whopping 280k jobs to this report vs an also large 309k in July 2022 but vs 148k in July 2019. Remember that this is a guess on how many new businesses/jobs were created relative to those that have folded. This gets reconciled via revisions but the BLS always overstates job gains at the unemployment rate low and understates them when unemployment peaks.