{"id":1004460307,"date":"2020-07-02T05:01:35","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T13:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004460307"},"modified":"2020-07-02T05:01:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T13:01:35","slug":"june-unemployment-figures-reveal-silver-lining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/june-unemployment-figures-reveal-silver-lining\/","title":{"rendered":"June Unemployment Figures Reveal Silver Lining"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image via Pixabay.com<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 11.1 percent in June with the addition of 4.8 million positions, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Thursday morning. That marked a 220-basis-point downtick from the 13.3 percent registered in May, the second consecutive drop.<\/p>\n

With states reopening to some extent, leisure and hospitality gained 2.1 million positions in June, but is still far behind pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, retail trade added 740,000 jobs. Education and health services (568,000 jobs), manufacturing (356,000 jobs), professional and business services (306,000 jobs) and construction (158,000 jobs) also recorded significant gains. Mining was the only sector to lose jobs last month, shedding 10,000 positions.  <\/p>\n

Additionally, the Department of Labor has released the number of initial unemployment claims for the week ending June 27, which added up to more than 1.4 million, in line with the downward trend of the past couple of months. The previous week, nearly 1.5 million Americans filed jobless claims. With the latest figure, the 15-week tally has inched closer to 50 million claims. <\/p>\n

Employment composition offers recovery clues<\/h2>\n

The June breakdowns for states and metro areas are scheduled to be released later in the month, but available data from May provides some insights. Large coastal gateways were the first to experience both a surge in cases and the subsequent economic fallout. Looking at the map for May unemployment<\/a>, the coasts and several Midwestern areas seem to have taken the first hit. However, long-term recovery might have more to do with employment composition.<\/p>\n

Metros with large shares of government, finance and professional and business services jobs are in a stronger position to weather the storm, as are secondary tech markets. As such, Washington, D.C., Sacramento, San Francisco, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, Boston, San Diego or Denver have economies that are relatively well-insulated.<\/p>\n