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IMPORT & EXPORT

Prices for U.S. imports increased 0.2% in June following a 0.5% advance the previous month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Higher import fuel prices in June more than offset lower nonfuel prices. U.S. export prices rose 0.7% in June, after increasing 2.9% in May.

Labor Productivity

Labor productivity rose in 24 of 30 selected service-providing industries from 2020 to 2021. Output grew in 23 of the 24 industries with an increase in productivity (natural gas distribution being the only exception, at −0.3%) and hours worked rose in 13 of the 24 industries. Productivity rose more than 25% in travel arrangement and reservation services (136.8%), amusement parks and arcades (87.4%), air transportation (61.8%), and full-service restaurants (25.3%) in 2021. In all four of those industries, output grew more than 44%.

Job Openings And Unemployment Rate

In May 2022, the job openings rate was 6.9 percent and the unemployment rate was 3.6%. In March and April, the job openings rate had been 7.3% and 7.2%, while May was the third consecutive month that the unemployment rate was 3.6%. A year earlier, in May 2021, the job openings rate was 6.2% and the unemployment rate was 5.8%.

Total Number Of Unemployed

The total number of unemployed people was essentially unchanged at 5.9 million in June 2022. The number of permanent job losers (those who are not on temporary layoff) was 1.3 million, the lowest since October 2019. The number of permanent job losers in June 2022 was down from 3.7 million in October 2020. In June 2022, the number of job losers on temporary layoff was 827,000, making up about 14% of the total unemployed. The recent peak for the number of job losers on temporary layoff was in April 2020, at 18.0 million. The number of unemployed job leavers was 832,000 in June 2022, little different from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.