June jobs numbers will have to work harder

T HE

Labor Department will release its monthly employment numbers on Friday, and the good news is that June’s numbers cannot be much worse than May’s.

But that doesn’t mean the figures will show a vibrant, healthy economy either. In fact, you can pretty much count on the fact that US businesses didn’t expand their payrolls by what would be considered a normal amount last month.

Back in May, the US created only 38,000 jobs. That was about one-third of what even the most pessimistic expert had been predicting.

And, as I said back then, that 38,000 figure would have actually gone negative — meaning the US economy had lost jobs — had it not been for the fact that Washington arbitrarily adds a generous number of positions that it guesses, but can’t prove, were created.

The May figures are likely to be revised with the Friday announcement and, with wacky seasonal adjust- ments, and the Labor Department’s guesswork, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether the 38,000 May figure will go up or down.

Let me tell you this: Experts are predicting that job growth will jump up to around 175,000 for June.

That’s a modest number by historical standards — barely enough to accommodate people trying to enter the labor force for the first time, much less help out-of-work Americans find employment.

Combined with May’s debacle, a 175,000 increase — producing a twomonth average of 106,500 — will be nothing to cheer about.

Still, 175,000 more or less will be a relief to those who are worried that the economy is sinking and perhaps might even enter a recession because of domestic problems as well as fallout from Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

There’s no way to tell whether June’s figure will be helped by seasonal adjustments since nobody I know has ever been able to figure out the ins and outs of this mysterious government computer guess.

There will, however, be a less generous guesstimate in June as to how many more jobs Labor believes were created than in May.

Back in May, the guesstimate added 217,000 jobs to the not seasonally adjusted total.

That probably added, after seasonal adjustments, 40,000 or so jobs to the headline figure, enough to paint it black instead of a negative, or red, number.

June’s guesstimate will be around 114,000 — half the size of May’s — which will make the top-line effect, possibly, half that of May’s.

The nation’s unemployment rate is expected to be 4.8 percent in June, up from 4.7 percent in May when the figure showed a sharp decline from April’s level.

But that decline occurred mainly because people left the workforce and not because they found jobs.

It’s already impossible for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates anytime soon. A disappointing number on Friday will make it doubly impossible.

Since the stock market abhors rising interest rates because they compete for investors’ money, equity prices could cheer a bad jobs figure.

So if you have a job and a 401(k), bad news on Friday could be good news. If you don’t have a job, you already know June sucked. The US has more oil reserves than either Russia or Saudi Arabia. That was the news this week. So what? Excuse me for my lack of excitement. But it’s caused by the fact that the US doesn’t know how to exploit such God-given gifts.

What would I do if I took charge? I’ve written this before, but it didn’t take. At the very least, I’d pressure Saudi Arabia — some of whose citizens have been a source of terrorism and unrest around the world — to get its act together.

Put more simply: Washington should pressure the Saudis to either control their militants — and those of neighboring countries — or be punished by having the US turn on the oil spigot until crude prices drop to an uncomfortable level.

We’d protect the US oil industry through subsidies AND — and this is a big one, that’s why I put “and” in capital letters — we will subsidize the development off energy-efficient cars, especially those that don’t use gasoline.

And we can do it because the US not only has the technological knowhow to cause a sharp reduction in the use of fossil fuels but also is ahead of both the Saudis and Rus- sians when it comes to oil reserves.

What good is having all that oil if you don’t use it to keep the bad guys over a barrel? The stock market is, basically, a confidence game. Stock prices will keep going up if more people believe it’s advantageous to buy stocks than to sell them. It’s as simple as that. Sometimes you get more buyers because the economy is doing well and people are optimistic. And sometimes it’s just a matter of more buyers than sellers and there’s no particular reason behind the optimism. So here’s some background: Bankrate.com says that only 33 p percent of millennials invest in the stock market. Overall, 40 percent of Americans invest in the stock market. If that trend continues, there aren’t going to be enough buyers to offset sellers during the next market downturn. Why aren’t millennials investing in stocks? I’ll guess they’re too broke because of student loans and the cost of living to think about taking a gamble on Wall Street.