The US job market added 288,000 jobs in June to signal that the US economy is on the road to recovery despite a poor GDP reading in the first quarter of 2014.
The US Labor Department released Thursday its non-farm payroll report, showing that 288,000 jobs were added to the market. The figure is significantly higher than the 212,000 jobs expected. It is the fifth consecutive month that the US job market adds more than 200,000 jobs. The figure also brought down unemployment rate to 6.1%, a pre-2008 crisis level.
Labor force participation came in at the expected levels of 62.8%. Average hourly earnings were also at the expected levels of increase, 0.2% month-on-month. The only figure that did disappoint the average hourly year-on-year; it increased by 2%, 0.1% lower than the increase made in June of 2013.