The U.S. economy added 57,000 jobs in June, the lightest month of hiring since February, when the labor market contracted, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% from 4.3%.
Health care hiring slowed, leisure and hospitality lost jobs:
Professional and business services added 36,000 jobs, bringing its total gain since an October 2025 low to 172,000.
Health care added 22,000 jobs, well below its 38,000 average monthly gain over the prior year, with hospitals adding 9,000. Social assistance added 25,000 jobs.
Leisure and hospitality lost 61,000 jobs, reflecting weaker than usual seasonal hiring.
Unemployment held steady across most demographic groups:
The number of unemployed people held at 7.1 million, with the jobless rate little changed at 4.2%.
The number of long-term unemployed, jobless for 27 weeks or more, held at 1.9 million but is up 286,000 over the year, now accounting for 27.3% of all unemployed people.
The labor force participation rate fell 0.3 percentage points to 61.5%, and the employment-population ratio edged down to 59.0%.
Wage growth continues to trail inflation:
Average hourly earnings rose 13 cents, or 0.3%, to $37.64, up 3.5% over the year, which remains below the most recent inflation reading of 4.2%.
The average workweek was unchanged at 34.3 hours.
Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees rose 7 cents to $32.38, while their average workweek declined 0.1 hours to 33.7 hours.
April and May were revised down by a combined 74,000 jobs:
April's total was revised down by 31,000, from 179,000 to 148,000, while May's total was revised down by 43,000, from 172,000 to 129,000.
The average monthly job gain over the past 12 months now stands at just 36,000.
Overall, we view the broad mosaic of jobs data as consistent with labor-market stabilization from weakness in late 2025, rather than renewed strength."
Read more via Bureau of Labor Statistics, NBC News
Private sector employment increased by 98,000 jobs in June, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report, produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Job creation was uneven, with financial activities and information among the gainers while leisure and hospitality logged a sixth straight month of weak hiring.
Education and health services led job gains:
Education and health services added 48,000 jobs, the largest gain of any sector.
Financial activities added 14,000 jobs, and trade, transportation and utilities added 15,000.
Natural resources and mining lost 5,000 jobs, the only sector to shed workers in June.
Goods-producing industries added just 2,000 jobs overall, compared with 96,000 in service-providing industries.
Job gains and losses by region and establishment size:
The South added the most jobs by region, at 37,000, followed by the Northeast at 33,000.
Small establishments accounted for 53,000 of June's job gains, more than medium and large businesses combined.
Pay growth for job-changers accelerated to 6.6%:
Median annual pay for job-stayers was little changed at 4.4%.
Pay growth for job-changers accelerated to 6.6% year-over-year.
May's total jobs figure was unchanged at 122,000.
ADP's report is based on private payroll data and uses a different methodology than the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report, so the two can show differing results in a given month.
The pace of hiring is telling a story of both supply and demand. We know it's taking people longer to find work, but there also are signs of labor supply constraints in certain industries. For now, the overall effect is a slowdown in job creation."
Read more via ADP
Job openings were little changed at 7.6 million in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, beating economist forecasts of around 7.3 million.
Openings held near a two-year high, hires stayed flat:
The job openings rate held at 4.6% for a second straight month.
Wholesale trade saw the largest increase in openings, adding 71,000.
The ratio of job openings to unemployed workers held steady near parity, well below the two-to-one peak reached in 2022.
Hires were unchanged at 5.2 million, with the hires rate holding at 3.3%.
Quits held steady, a sign workers aren't rushing to leave:
Quits, seen as a measure of worker confidence, were little changed at 3.1 million, with the rate unchanged at 1.9%.
Layoffs and discharges were unchanged at 1.7 million, with the rate little changed at 1.1%.
April's job openings were revised down by 33,000 to 7.6 million, while hires for the month were revised up by 99,000 to 5.2 million.
Read more via Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quartz
A shortage of job openings is playing a far bigger role in unemployment among 18- to 24-year-olds than a lack of AI skills, according to a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Unemployment among 18- to 24-year-olds rose 2.9 percentage points between April 2023 and December 2025 due to a lack of job openings, more than double the 1.1-point increase tied to employers shifting toward AI-related jobs.
Among recent college graduates, weak job openings raised unemployment by about 2.2 percentage points, compared with 1.7 points from AI-related job demand.
The study focused on AI raising skill requirements and reducing entry-level roles, not on job losses caused by AI automation.
The findings echo a separate Federal Reserve Bank of New York study that pointed to the rise of remote work, rather than AI, as a bigger driver of joblessness among young college graduates.
AI adds an additional headwind at the point of labor market entry, particularly for recent college graduates, but its effects remain smaller than those of the broader decline in job openings."
Read more via Bloomberg, St. Louis Fed
Three labor economists recently offered starkly different predictions on how AI will reshape employment, from wholesale disruption to a manageable transition.
University of Virginia economist Anton Korinek predicts labor's share of national income, now about 60%, will fall below 50% "in our lifetimes" as AI systems take on both cognitive and physical work.
MIT's David Autor rejected the idea of a "software apocalypse," arguing AI will make some jobs more expertise-intensive rather than eliminate work outright, though he flagged AI's potential to fuel political instability and disinformation.
Yale Budget Lab director Martha Gimbel pointed to a persistent demand for human interaction as a check on AI's spread, noting fully automated piano players have existed for a century without displacing live musicians.
The economists agreed white-collar, information-intensive roles without deep specialization face the most near-term risk, including call center work, translation and some middle management.
Read more via The Wall Street Journal
Entry-level work is being reshaped by AI faster than most organizations can adapt their hiring and training, according to a joint study from Cognizant and Pearson.
94% of HR leaders expect AI to generate new entry-level roles within five years, while 96% expect existing entry-level roles to shift toward supervising AI systems.
60% say their learning and development programs can't keep pace with how quickly AI is transforming jobs, and 46% aren't proactively arranging AI training despite rising employee demand.
69% say broad, interdisciplinary backgrounds now matter more for early-career talent than deep specialization, and 67% say they value liberal arts degrees more than they used to.
64% say they can't find the right talent because AI is rapidly changing the skills they need to hire for.
Read more via PR Newswire
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rose 0.6 points to 91.2 in June, a modest gain that masked a sharp decline in how consumers view the current job market. The index, benchmarked to a 1985 value of 100, combines consumers' assessment of current conditions with their expectations for the next six months.
The Present Situation Index, covering current business and labor conditions, fell 3.0 points to 116.4.
The Expectations Index, covering income, business, and labor market outlook, rose 3.0 points to 74.4.
The share of consumers saying jobs are "hard to get" rose to 22.5%, the highest level since January 2021.
Perceptions of the current labor market softened measurably as the percentage of consumers saying jobs were 'hard to get' rose to 22.5%, the highest level since January 2021."
The labor market differential, the gap between consumers saying jobs are "plentiful" versus "hard to get," narrowed to just 2.4 percentage points.
Falling oil prices eased inflation fears and lifted views of current business conditions, even as worsening perceptions of the labor market weighed on the index overall.
Read more via The Conference Board
Higher minimum wage rates are taking effect in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, DC, and more than 20 localities on July 1, following a round of increases that already hit 19 states and nearly 50 cities and counties on January 1.
Alaska's minimum wage rises to $14 an hour, up from $13.
Oregon's standard minimum wage increases from $15.05 to $15.55 an hour, with Portland-area employers required to pay at least $16.30.
Washington, DC's minimum wage rises to $18.40, up from $17.95.
This is the first year more workers are covered by a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour than by the $7.25 federal minimum.
Inflation has outpaced wage growth for the last two months, meaning the raises won't stretch as far as workers may have expected.
There's less of a pay premium for switching, which is keeping more people locked into place, keeping turnover low, and creating this perpetual cycle of stalled activity across the labor market."
Read more via HR Brew
A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Trump's executive order that would have denied citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily, preserving a status quo with long-term implications for the size and makeup of the future American workforce.
The court ruled 6-3 against Trump's order, with a five-justice majority holding that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly everyone born in the U.S.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that "citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights, to freely participate in our political community," and that the framers of the 14th Amendment "extended that promise to every free-born person in this land."
Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not join the constitutional ruling but agreed with the outcome, pointing to a federal law he said broadly conveys birthright citizenship.
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented and would have upheld Trump's proposed restrictions.
Read more via The Associated Press
Czech Republic: Career stagnation, not low pay or poor management, is the top reason employees leave their jobs, according to the Wellbeing Index 2025, a survey of more than 10,000 employee evaluations by job portals JenPráce.cz and JenFirmy.cz. Career development opportunities scored just 2.97 out of 5, well below other workplace measures, with researchers warning that pay alone can't secure long-term loyalty. (Expats.cz)
Germany: Germany's working-age population is projected to shrink by 4.3 million by 2036, falling to 51 million, as baby boomer retirements, a declining birth rate and reduced immigration converge. The IW economic institute in Cologne, which published the report, said migration is expected to remain subdued due to tougher government policies and a weak economic outlook. (France 24)
Switzerland: Entry level job postings were 32% lower in 2025 than the 2019-2022 pre-AI average, according to a study by Swiss job portal jobs.ch that examined more than 7.3 million listings. Marketing, administration, finance and IT were hit hardest, while senior postings in AI-exposed roles rose 26% over the same period. Entry level demand remained strong outside office and research roles, particularly in healthcare, construction and trades facing persistent shortages. (Reuters)
United Kingdom: U.K. inflation held steady at 2.8% in May, below economist expectations of a rise to 3%, with transport costs, including a 10.3% monthly jump in air fares, the biggest contributor. The Bank of England is expected to hold interest rates at 3.75% as policymakers wait to see how energy price changes and Middle East volatility affect the outlook. (CNBC)
