US Payrolls Increase In July As Unemployment Rate Slides To 5.4%

• Hiring rose in July at its fastest pace in nearly a year despite fears over COVID-19′s delta variant and as companies struggled with a tight labour supply, the Labour Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 943,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%, according to the department’s Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS). The payroll increase was the best since August 2020. 
• Average hourly earnings also increased more than expected, rising 0.4% for the month and are up 4% from the same period a year ago, at a time when concerns are increasing about persistent inflationary pressures. 
• “The data for recent months suggest that the rising demand for labour associated with the recovery from the pandemic may have put upward pressure on wages,” the BLS said in the report, though it cautioned that the Covid impact is still skewing data and wage gains are uneven across industries. 
• The drop in the headline unemployment rate looked even stronger considering that the labour force participation rate ticked up to 61.7%, tied for the highest level since the pandemic hit in March 2020.

(Source: CNBC)