Jobs, Firework Injuries, & More

Week in Review: July 1-5

This week was all about Independence Day and today’s jobs report (read Anirban’s take on that here, free for all subscribers), but this post also covers labor shortages, construction spending, firework sales and injuries, and more.

Monday

Construction Spending

Construction spending was pretty much flat in May, inching 0.1% lower, and is up just 6.4% year over year.  

Residential fell 0.2% for the month due to a sharp decline in spending on new single family homes. Nonresidential spending also slipped 0.1%. That was entirely due to a dip in private sector spending. Public nonresidential spending increased 0.4% for the month as infrastructure projects hit the ground.

Big picture, nonresidential spending remains just a hair below the all-time high set in March and is in pretty good shape despite obvious challenges.

ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index

The U.S. manufacturing sector shrank for the 19^th time in the past 20 months during June, according to this survey of industry managers. Nothing new here—the goods side of the economy has been struggling for a while.

TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers

People keep traveling like crazy according to TSA data. Travel volumes usually fall off toward the end of June and start of July, but that hasn’t been the case this year.

Tuesday

Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)

The number of open, unfilled jobs moved slightly higher in May but is still down by 1.2 million over the past year. 4.9% of jobs are currently unfilled. That’s higher than the 4.4% pre-pandemic rate but lower than at any point from February 2021 to March 2024.

Employees are now quitting their jobs at a slower rate than before the pandemic. That could indicate people are happy with their current gigs, or it could indicate they’re having a harder time finding other jobs. Probably a little bit of both.

Employers, on the other hand, are still reluctant to fire workers. The layoff rate stayed at 1.0%, which is lower than in any month on record prior to 2021.  

Gas Prices

Gas prices increased to a still pretty low average of $3.60/gallon. That’s $0.04/gallon cheaper than one year ago.

Diesel Prices

Diesel prices increased to the highest level since mid-May but are still down $0.82/gallon from the September peak.

Wednesday

Jobless Claims