Job data’s all over the place, but things are still pretty good for some workers

A lot of people are anxiously waiting for the Labor Department to release the June jobs report Friday.

​Economists, Marketplace reporters, investors and maybe most importantly, the Federal Reserve — which wants to see U.S. job and wage growth moderate in its effort to subdue inflation.

Leading up to that much-anticipated jobs report, on Thursday we got a lot of confounding, contradictory indicators moving up and down and all around.

Jobless claims are rising, according to the Labor Department, but announcements of job cuts by big employers fell by half last month, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The Labor Department reports that job openings dropped by half a million in May, but more workers quit voluntarily in hopes of finding a better job, fast. 

And private-sector employers hired almost half a million new workers in June, according to payroll processor ADP. That huge number totally confounds economists’ expectations of a slowdown.

Split all the differences, and economist Bill Adams at Comerica Bank comes up with this: “The job market does seem a little cooler than in 2022, although it’s still good and it’s adding jobs relatively quickly.”

Adams said companies are seeing business slow down. But they worked hard to staff up in a labor shortage, so they don’t want to lay anyone off now.

“Because they think it might be really difficult to rehire if the economy picks up again,” Adams said.

Meaning the labor market is likely to remain challenging for employers. 

“Companies are growing, and there’s more jobs than there are people,” said Kathleen Quinn Votaw, who runs TalenTrust, a recruitment and retention firm. 

“Employees are quite optimistic and in the driver’s seat. Just because a soft recession might be coming doesn’t mean that the supply of workers is going to magically open up again,” Votaw said.

She said boomers keep retiring, and younger workers are more choosy about the jobs, locations and schedules they’ll accept. 

Even though job growth has flatlined in manufacturing, some of those skilled workers can find jobs in construction, for instance, which is doing great, said Jim McCoy at staffing firm ManpowerGroup.  

“Manufacturers need electricians, the homebuilding industry needs electricians. Same thing with plumbers, same thing with welders,” McCoy said.

So bottom line, for many workers the good times are likely to keep rolling, for a while.