U.S. economy adds 215,000 jobs, but many still looking

Statistics in Friday's employment report from the U.S. Labor Department point to an economy humming along nicely:

Employment was up by 215,000 jobs in July, with hires in nearly every major sector. The unemployment rate stayed the same at 5.3 percent. Employment numbers from previous months were revised upward, indicating more growth.

But the statistics don't do much for housing supervisor Marian Gwadera, 55, who, on July 31, lost his job overseeing janitors at 2116 Chestnut St., thereby becoming one of the nation's nearly 8.3 million jobless.

"My son is autistic and I need my benefits," said Gwadera.

He was arrested in the building's lobby Wednesday along with four coworkers, when they tried to persuade the building's new managers to give them their jobs back.

Gwadera had been laid off 17 months before landing this job in June 2013, shortly before the luxury apartment building began accepting its first tenants.

Hiring increased in construction, food and chemical manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, transportation, warehouse work, financial activities, education, health care, legal services and engineering and architecture.

The unemployment that dogged building trades in the recession and the years following it has been erased locally, said Emily Bittenbender, chief executive of Bittenbender Construction L.P. and chairman of the General Building Contractors Association, in Philadelphia.

Nationally, mining declined, as did manufacturing involving machinery, computer equipment, and appliances. State government employment also declined, although local and federal employment increased despite layoffs at the U.S. Postal Service.

In recent years, temporary employment has increased as more companies hire through agencies.

But in July, temporary employment dropped by 8,900 workers, to just below 2.9 million.

"Staffing firms across several sectors report continued tightening of the labor supply of qualified candidates," Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association, said in a statement.

"At the same time, there has been an increase in temporary-to-hire conversions and demand for recruiting permanent candidates," he said. "This is positive for job seekers looking for a bridge to permanent work."

Politicians from both sides weighed in on Friday's report.

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez pointed to continued job growth, but also noted that pay has not kept up with productivity.

"That's why," Perez wrote in a statement, "President Obama has proposed changing the overtime rules to give millions of workers access to time-and-a-half pay. That's why Congress must increase the minimum wage," as well as pass a national paid-leave law.

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) wrote that "while it's welcome news that more Americans found work last month, the president's policies aren't delivering the strong, sustained economic growth families need to get ahead.

"Wages are flat," he wrote, "incomes are down, and more Americans are in poverty than when the president took office."

Economists are watching to see what effect Friday's numbers will have on the question that is looms so large, it ought to be written in italics: Will the Federal Reserve raise interest rates?

"If the Fed was looking for further reasons to begin raising interest rates in September, it found plenty in the July report," wrote Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS, an economic analysis firm, citing "decent payroll gains, an increase (albeit small) in the labor force, a bounce in manufacturing jobs, and growth in wages (albeit still tepid)."

Even so, he wrote, "a labor force participation rate that remains at a 38-year low and wage gains that could be signaling more slack in the labor market don't make a September rate hike a slam dunk."