US non-farm payrolls rise by 209,000 in June

Tightness in the US jobs market eased during the previous month, as companies took on the fewest workers since December 2020.

In seasonally adjusted terms, the Department of Labor reported a 209,000 person increase in hiring.

Economists had forecast a reading of 225,000.

That was on top of downwards revisions to the payrolls data for April and May combined of 110,000.

Growth in average hourly earnings on the other hand printed at up by 0.4% month-on-month (consensus: 0.3%), while May's print was revised higher by a tenth of a percentage point.

In year-on-year terms, wages were ahead by 4.4% last month.

Looking ahead, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted how the National Federation of Independent Business's hiring index for June, which had come out the day before, had reversed the gains seen in April and May.

"If sustained, the new reading is consistent with sub-100K payroll growth by early fall, though it could rebound temporarily in the meantime," he said.

Shepherdson also highlighted how the number of hours worked had grown by only 0.1% in annualised terms over the second quarter - the weakest showing since the last quarter of 2019.

Wage growth was a "problem", although Shepherdson believed that it might not survive future revisions to the figures.