Employment Data Poor Despite Drop in Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate fell to 9.5% from 9.7%, but this likely reflects people dropping out of the labor market.  The work week fell 0.1%, which is the equivalent of about 300k job loss.  The private sector 83k jobs and the May data were revised to show only 33k from 41k.  Hourly earnings fell 0.1%.  Bottom line then is few man-hours of work, fewer jobs and less income.

The data is not strong enough to ease anxiety about the US economy and the losing momentum.  The dollar will likely stay under pressure.  The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso are also vulnerable to poor US data.