If the devil is in the details, then angels can be there too. That was the case with the June jobs report released last week, which thoroughly beat expectations, but also had great internals. Delving beyond just the headlines shows the American labor market in June was much more robust than most so-called experts realized.
The economy added 147,000 jobs last month, significantly more than the consensus estimate on Wall Street. The unemployment rate declined to 4.1 percent, also defying expectations as the number of people unemployed declined by 222,000. Even better than the number of people getting jobs is the quality of those jobs and who’s getting them.
Astonishingly, all of the net job growth in June came from full-time work. Indeed, the number of part-time jobs actually declined. A growing number of Americans were able to secure better paying jobs with benefits instead of only gig work or side hustles.
This trend has helped increase the average American’s weekly paycheck, which has risen faster than inflation since President Trump took office in January. That’s a stark contrast to Mr. Trump’s predecessor, who oversaw a 4 percent decline in the inflation-adjusted value of those weekly paychecks.
And unlike the last administration, the labor market is no longer depending on a massively expanding federal workforce to pump up the monthly job numbers. Federal payrolls (excluding the postal service) have declined every month this year as Mr. Trump slashes the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.
The decline in the federal workforce this year has completely offset hiring by state and local governments. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey shows the number of people employed by the government fell more than half a million in the first half of this year.
Mr. Trump has thus far been wildly successful in shrinking government bureaucracy and reprivatizing the economy. This is vitally important in getting the economy—and the American family—back on its feet by shifting employment and resources away from the unproductive public sector to the productive private sector. As government jobs are vanishing, private employment is rising.
Furthermore, the rate at which these good jobs are increasing is better than previously estimated. The June jobs report revised up the number of payrolls in May and April, meaning the economy had even more jobs than initially thought. That’s in stark contrast to what happened under the Biden administration, when jobs numbers were routinely revised down after overly optimistic estimates.
It's also worth noting who is getting all the jobs being added to the economy. During the Biden administration, native-born Americans were essentially left behind in the labor market recovery. By December 2024, there were 716,000 fewer native-born Americans employed than in December 2019 before the pandemic, with all net job growth over that time going to foreign-born workers.
Today, the situation has reversed. Over the 12 months ending in June, job growth among native-born Americans was 1.4 million higher than among foreign-born workers. In fact, this was best June ever for employment among native-born Americans, setting a new record of almost 133 million.
It’s important to note that these data collected by the Labor Department on native-born and foreign-born employment is not seasonally adjusted, and that has implications for how to interpret these numbers.
For example, the number of native-born Americans with jobs typically surges in June and July as millions of high school and college students take on summer jobs. Conversely, this employment level drops in August as those young people return to school.
A similar seasonal pattern occurs near the end of the year, as many people get part-time work before Christmas, pushing up employment at year’s end, followed by a plunge in January. That’s why month-to-month changes are an apple-to-oranges comparison, and the annual changes are much more meaningful.
Hence, although it’s technically true to say employment among native-born Americans has increased by 2.1 million under Mr. Trump, a portion of that increase is just the normal seasonal change. A better analysis is to compare June’s annual change in jobs held by foreign-born workers with those held by native-born Americans. By that metric, Mr. Trump has hit a home run.
Employment among native-born Americans rose 1.4 million more than among foreign-born workers in the 12 months ending in June. That’s a stark contrast to the final 12 months of the Biden administration, during which time jobs among foreign-born workers rose 1.2 million faster than jobs among native-born Americans.
What a difference a President can make!
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D., is chief economist and the Richard Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow at Unleash Prosperity.