Texas A&M economist explains what you need to know about the July Job Report
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – The United States jobs report for the month of July was released Friday. Expert economist Dr. Raymond Robertson joined KBTX for Focus at Four to explain exactly what the report means.
The report showed 187,000 positions were added in July. Also last month, unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5% from 3.6%.
“One of the things that people are having a hard time to accept, apparently, is that the economy is doing extremely well. These are almost historically low unemployment rates, and when you think of the unemployment rate as being one of the main indicators of a recession or a boom in the economy, these low unemployment rates means that these are very good times right now in the economy,” Robertson said.
The Federal Reserve is concerned about inflation and keeping it under control. They raised interest rates at the end of July. Robertson said that although the Fed is cautious, he expects them to maintain stability for the near future.
Robertson also mentioned that this is a good time for people to save money versus borrowing.
“There’s another big push going on for people to start saving a lot more when times are good in the sense of interest rates being high for savers.”
Robertson added that gas prices creeping back up is not so much an issue of the economy as it is an international issue.
“This is not so much the impact of the Federal Reserve as it is what’s going on in Russia and in Saudi Arabia. They cut back oil production that drives up prices and then we see higher gas prices at the pump.”
