U.S. Added 287,000 Jobs in June U.S. employers ramped up hiring in June after a sluggish spring, signaling renewed momentum in the labor market that could quiet fears about a broader economic slowdown, even as global market turbulence casts a shadow over the outlook.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 287,000 in June, the Labor Department said Friday, the strongest month of hiring since last October. The figure was boosted by the end of a strike at Verizon Communications Inc. that the agency had said shaved about 35,000 jobs from payrolls in May.
Revisions showed U.S. employers added 6,000 fewer jobs in May and April than previously estimated. May’s payrolls figure was revised down to a meager gain of 11,000, the weakest month of hiring since the U.S. stopped shedding jobs in 2010.
The unemployment rate, calculated from a separate survey of American households, rose to 4.9% in June from 4.7% in May, partly retracing its drop from 5.0% in April. The workforce expanded in June after shrinking the prior month, and the labor-force participation rate ticked up to 62.7%.
Over the past 3 months, total job gains have averaged 147,000 per month (+135k in private), down from +195 (+181k) in Q1 and +282 (+281k) in Q4’15.
China Auto Sales Growth Accelerates on Rising SUV Demand
Retail sales of cars, sport utility vehicles and multipurpose vehicles climbed 9.5 percent to 10.8 million units in the January-June period, according to the China Passenger Car Association. (…)
SUVs accounted for 35 percent of total passenger-vehicle sales in the first six months, compared with 27 percent in the same period a year earlier. That’s also in part been driven by more local manufacturers introducing cheaper models in the segment to woo buyers. Industrywide deliveries rose 19 percent to 1.7 million units in June.
The operating costs for Chinese customers to switch from sedans to SUVs are low because domestic automakers offer less expensive SUVs than their foreign competitors, according to Steve Man, an auto analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
The more than doubling of sales of electric vehicles stand out as the government accelerates construction of charging points to serve 5 million electric vehicles by 2020. China, which surpassed the U.S. as the largest market for electric vehicles last year, wants sales of what it calls new-energy vehicles to exceed 3 million units a year by 2025. (…)
Yuan Declines for Fifth Week as PBOC Seen Cutting Back Support
BREXIT
We are all inundated by Brexit stuff. This is among the best I have seen: Brexit Special: The Empire Strikes Back (wards)
Bank of Italy Chief Says Some Italian Banks May Need Aid
Bank of Italy Gov. Ignazio Visco said Friday that state intervention may be needed to prevent the problems afflicting Italy’s weakest banks from spreading to other lenders.
“A public intervention cannot be ruled out given that in a context of high uncertainty specific problems can impact confidence in the [whole] banking system,” said Mr. Visco.