Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. This is another very
Speaker 1: strong jobs report.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get tired of coming here and
Speaker 2: telling you that we are continuing to experience very strong,
Speaker 2: stable and steady growth. So it's two hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: two thousand jobs created last month.
Speaker 1: The unemployment rate has remained at.
Speaker 2: Or below four percent for thirty months straight. That's still
Speaker 2: the longest since the nineteen sixties. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: real wages, you know, over the year are up four
Speaker 2: point one percent, So workers are doing better in an
Speaker 2: economy in which the President has said, when we focus
Speaker 2: on workers and worker well being, we're going to do
Speaker 2: what's right for the economy and for the country.
Speaker 3: When you look under the hood, you find that four
Speaker 3: hundred thousand, even more than four hundred thousand people left
Speaker 3: the labor force in May. The participation rate is not
Speaker 3: back where it was before COVID. Right now, how do
Speaker 3: you explain that?
Speaker 2: Well, so let's say, you know, the prime age labor
Speaker 2: force PARTESIS patient rate remains very very strong, and it's
Speaker 2: worth noting that again women's labor first participation.
Speaker 1: Rate hit another historic high.
Speaker 2: So last month we said it was the highest since
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight when this data was begun to be collected.
Speaker 1: It's now a little bit higher than that.
Speaker 2: Even so, women continue to power our economic recovery. At
Speaker 2: the same time, you know, we are seeing again strong participation.
Speaker 2: People are in the job market. People have come off
Speaker 2: the sidelines. People are looking for jobs and they're finding them.
Speaker 2: Where there has been a little bit of you know,
Speaker 2: of a very small uptick in the unemployment rate again
Speaker 2: still at or below four percent for the longest stretch
Speaker 2: in decades, but has to do with young people ages
Speaker 2: twenty to twenty four, who are in a bit of transition. Really,
Speaker 2: if we think about May, right May is a period
Speaker 2: of transition for all of us, parents with kids who
Speaker 2: graduate and maybe move and you know, are looking for
Speaker 2: different jobs during that time.
Speaker 3: You can tell a great story and put a great
Speaker 3: headline number on that unemployment story as you are right now.
Speaker 3: But when you look under the hood, you do see
Speaker 3: some elements of weakness compared to the payroll survey. And
Speaker 3: I wonder, while your happy word is now, if you
Speaker 3: worry about where we're going to be six months from now,
Speaker 3: if this is a slowing job market.
Speaker 2: Well, the payroll survey really is the gold standard when
Speaker 2: it comes to the unemployment rate, right, this is the
Speaker 2: you know, it's the largest by far of any data set,
Speaker 2: including the household survey that is used. And so again,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any way to paint this as
Speaker 2: other than continued, strong, stable and steady growth under President
Speaker 2: Biden's leadership and proof of his theory that if we
Speaker 2: invest in America, we can create good jobs in communities
Speaker 2: and crowd in private investment in order to do that.
Speaker 2: And you know, as I travel the country, I'm seeing
Speaker 2: the benefits of that.
Speaker 3: We've talked a lot about the impacts that immigration has
Speaker 3: on our job market. It can be for better or worse,
Speaker 3: depending on the trend that you're looking at. And there's
Speaker 3: an analysis from Steve England Standard Chartered Bank that we
Speaker 3: looked at this week that estimates about half of the
Speaker 3: job growth since October can be attributed to undocumented migrants.
Speaker 3: That it's somewhere in the area of one hundred and
Speaker 3: nine thousand a month. If the President's executive order put
Speaker 3: in place just days ago lowers the threshold, lowers the
Speaker 3: numbers of undocumented immigrants entering the country, what does that
Speaker 3: mean for the job market. Do you see numbers like
Speaker 3: that in you're modeling.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't seen that study.
Speaker 2: I would actually question those numbers based on what we see.
Speaker 2: This is a situation where one we're not talking about
Speaker 2: dividing a small pie into smaller pieces.
Speaker 1: We're talking about a much bigger pie overall.
Speaker 2: So more jobs, more people in the labor market, more
Speaker 2: opportunity for all. Since the President came into office, again,
Speaker 2: we've talked about this, you know, fifteen million jobs created.
Speaker 2: That is a fifteen million families, fifteen million individuals who
Speaker 2: are having the benefits of a good job that might
Speaker 2: not have had that before. I would also say that
Speaker 2: it is true that there has been you know, immigration
Speaker 2: based growth also, and that has been true throughout our
Speaker 2: nation's history, right that immigrants have helped to do jobs
Speaker 2: and help field the economy.
Speaker 1: But the majority of this job growth.
Speaker 2: That we're talking about has gone to native born workers.
Speaker 3: We'll talk to me about the other side of this story,
Speaker 3: and that's immigration reform H one B, H two B.
Speaker 3: We spend all day talking about border security in Washington.
Speaker 3: What does our job market need in terms of attracting
Speaker 3: talent from other countries legally?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such an important question, right.
Speaker 2: This is why since day one, President Biden has called
Speaker 2: for the kinds of comprehensive immigration reform that would address,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the challenges that our system has created.
Speaker 1: Job market look like with that help, what what our
Speaker 1: job market look like with you got that reform? Right?
Speaker 2: Well, so we do administer you know, we have in
Speaker 2: this administration increase the number of H two B workers
Speaker 2: that have come in. We recently did a rule around
Speaker 2: H two A workers making sure that when migrant workers
Speaker 2: come to this country through legal means that they're also
Speaker 2: protected right, that they are protected for their own good
Speaker 2: but also so that they're being here doesn't take away
Speaker 2: from you know, the good wages in those industries. So
Speaker 2: you know, but the bigger picture is that there does
Speaker 2: need to be comprehensive reform. The President has called for that,
Speaker 2: and frankly, Congress needs to do its job.
Speaker 3: There's something that I don't want to get too deep
Speaker 3: in the weeds called the birth death model that our
Speaker 3: analysts set Bloomberg Economics, are looking at that would suggest
Speaker 3: some of the companies that we've seen closing might not
Speaker 3: be reflected yet in the numbers that we saw in
Speaker 3: this monthly survey based on layoff announcements corporate closures. Where
Speaker 3: do we look in the middle of summer when these
Speaker 3: numbers start to emerge.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we will come out every month to
Speaker 2: report the data that we have. But everything that we
Speaker 2: have seen this past month, this past year, as well
Speaker 2: as you know the last year since President Biden came
Speaker 2: to office, is.
Speaker 1: Historic job growth, more jobs created.
Speaker 2: The same time period than any president in our history,
Speaker 2: and continued low levels of unemployment again historic lows, and
Speaker 2: more opportunity to come right. The investments in the President's
Speaker 2: Investing in America agenda, many of them are still coming out.
Speaker 1: And that's why this summer I'm.
Speaker 2: Going across the country talking about good Job Summer and
Speaker 2: focusing on the importance of what a good job does.
Speaker 3: Good job principles. Summer Tour, You're like Beyonce, You're launching
Speaker 3: a national tour and it's not a mistake. I see
Speaker 3: some of the states are going through, like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Speaker 3: What is your message to voters in those states?
Speaker 2: Well, my message to working people is that we see you,
Speaker 2: we have your back, We know that you have talent
Speaker 2: and desire, and we want to create the kinds of
Speaker 2: opportunities that will allow working people to have a good
Speaker 2: job where they can be paid a living wage and
Speaker 2: live a secure life. And our message generally is that
Speaker 2: when you build a workforce that is ready, that is trained,
Speaker 2: that is skilled, that pulls the full talent of the
Speaker 2: American people, it's good for employers, it's good for economy.
Speaker 1: And we see that time and time again in these
Speaker 1: jobs numbers.
Speaker 3: Getting back to the household survey, which is important to
Speaker 3: us and our viewers and listeners. The fact that it
Speaker 3: reflects agriculture, the fact that it reflects what's happening in
Speaker 3: people's households. Does that not raise the level of importance
Speaker 3: of the household survey at this point? When we look
Speaker 3: at that against payrolls, they get a sense of not
Speaker 3: even as much where we are now, but where we're going.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the bigger you know, the answer
Speaker 2: is the payroll survey is the survey that tells us
Speaker 2: how many jobs have been created, what industries they'd be
Speaker 2: created in. And again, this the growth we're talking about
Speaker 2: is not just single industry, right, it has been for
Speaker 2: the entire time, but certainly this last month is no different,
Speaker 2: very very broad based. We saw growth in leisure and hospitality,
Speaker 2: we saw it in construction, we saw it in professional services,
Speaker 2: we saw it in healthcare, and so you know.
Speaker 1: There's really the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 2: It's really you know, broad based, solid continued growth. And
Speaker 2: I think that coveted soft landing that so many people
Speaker 2: bet against.
Speaker 3: Well, I haven't even mentioned that yet. It's my job
Speaker 3: to ask you if we're in the soft landing. I
Speaker 3: haven't heard words like goldilocks this morning. What's your broader
Speaker 3: thirty thousand foot view on that. You're looking at your
Speaker 3: slice of the economy, that's the labor market. Is a
Speaker 3: soft landing intact?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: I mean again, it's the kind of thing where we're
Speaker 2: always vigilant about where the economy is going, but based
Speaker 2: on where we were. Remember in twenty twenty one, right
Speaker 2: the president came into office, COVID was raging, there was
Speaker 2: no national strategy to address it.
Speaker 1: Unemployment was very very high.
Speaker 2: People didn't know if they were gonna get toilet paper
Speaker 2: if they went to the supermarket. And now we have
Speaker 2: historic job growth, low levels of unemployment. I think it
Speaker 2: is the very definition of a soft landing.
Speaker 3: You mentioned COVID. It's not the first time we've brought
Speaker 3: this up as a barometer or maybe a baseline for
Speaker 3: where we are now versus where we were before the pandemic.
Speaker 3: It's still impossible to forecast, isn't it. You see these
Speaker 3: payroll numbers blowing off the charts based on estimates no,
Speaker 3: not just by the government but by Wall Street and
Speaker 3: economists who are a lot smarter than I am. When
Speaker 3: will we be able to get a handle on what
Speaker 3: comes next?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think you know the reality is.
Speaker 2: That's why we don't look at any one month's numbers,
Speaker 2: as you know, over relying on them to tell a story.
Speaker 2: But the story of this economy from January twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one until now is of steady, stable growth, shared prosperity,
Speaker 2: and more investments to come.
Speaker 1: We know that, you know that there's more work to do.
Speaker 1: We're also seeing the lowest.
Speaker 2: Levels of like black white unemployment in a very long time,
Speaker 2: so it's equitable growth too, and that matters a lot.
Speaker 3: What would a second Biden term mean for the job market?
Speaker 2: I think we continue to deliver, right, We continue to
Speaker 2: build a strong economy, We continue to invest in American
Speaker 2: industry in a way.
Speaker 1: That hasn't been done in decades. So building, you.
Speaker 2: Know, restoring roads and bridges, making sure that every family
Speaker 2: who turns on the fossgate clean drinking water, making sure
Speaker 2: that everybody breathes clean air, has access to high speed,
Speaker 2: reliable internet. Those are the kind of infrastructure investments. You know,
Speaker 2: we're you know, we want to build the things that
Speaker 2: we invented, right, So bringing manufacturing back to the United States,
Speaker 2: I think it means, you know, continued opportunity for the
Speaker 2: American people.
Speaker 3: Will you still be in this building if there's a
Speaker 3: second term, Well.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to make predictions about that.
Speaker 2: I do serve us the pleasure of the President, but
Speaker 2: it has been an honor to help to deliver on
Speaker 2: that vision.