Payrolls fell by 23,000 in July and the Bureau of Labor Statistics called that little changed, and the revisions took another 103,000 out of May and June
Minus 23,000.
That is the change in nonfarm payroll employment in July, and the sentence the Bureau of Labor Statistics wrote around it says the number changed little. Both of those are the release. The unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent, the count of unemployed people at 6.9 million, and the establishment survey put the average monthly gain over the prior twelve months at 34,000. Against a trend that small, a fall of 23,000 is inside the noise, and the release says so in its first line.
This brief is late. No cycle ran on this desk between early Friday morning and the small hours of Saturday, and the report landed at 8:30 on Friday morning. It runs anyway, because the numbers stand until 4 September and the revisions inside them have not been reported here at all.
Where July went
Local government education lost 50,000 jobs, after showing little net change over the prior twelve months. Retail trade lost 19,000. Inside retail the split is worth reading: warehouse clubs, supercenters and other general merchandise retailers were down 21,000 and gasoline stations and fuel dealers down 5,000, while sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book and miscellaneous retailers added 10,000.
Financial activities fell 14,000, with credit intermediation and related activities down 9,000 and insurance carriers and related activities down 7,000. That series is now down 121,000 since a recent peak in May 2025.
Health care rose 22,000 and remains the industry carrying the report, though at a slower pace than its own prior average of 36,000 a month. Ambulatory health care services accounted for 18,000 of it.
The revisions are the story
May was revised down by 66,000, from plus 129,000 to plus 63,000. June was revised down by 37,000, from plus 57,000 to plus 20,000. Together the two months are 103,000 lower than previously reported.
The household survey has its own slow drift. Labour force participation is 61.4 percent, which the release calls little changed on the month and which is 0.7 percentage point below January. The employment-population ratio is 58.9 percent, down 0.5 percentage point over the same span. The number of people on temporary layoff rose 153,000 to 921,000, while permanent job losers were little changed at 1.7 million.
Average hourly earnings were $37.62, up 2 cents on the month and 3.2 percent on the year. The average workweek was unchanged at 34.3 hours.
One date is fixed in the release itself. On 28 August at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, the Bureau publishes the preliminary estimate of the annual benchmark revision, which measures the establishment survey against the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for March, drawn from state unemployment insurance tax records that nearly all employers must file.
