Last month, in June, the U.S. added more jobs than expected! The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (a group that tracks jobs and workers) said on Friday that 206,000 jobs were added. This is less than the jobs added in May, which were 218,000 after some corrections, but it still shows that many people are finding work.

However, the number of people without jobs, which is called the unemployment rate, increased slightly to 4.1% in June, the highest since last November.

U.S. June Job Figures Defy Predictions, Unemployment Rate Sees Slight Increase; Bitcoin Market Shaken

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• The U.S. job market exceeds expectations, with 206,000 jobs added in June, although the unemployment rate has increased to 4.1%.
• Bitcoin’s value drops slightly amid a major market shakeup. Due to a surge in supply, it has decreased by 10% over the past two days.
• Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggests a potential shift in monetary policy, emphasizing job market stability over inflation.

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Also, people’s average pay per hour increased by a small amount of 0.3% in June, the same amount experts thought it would. Over a year, this adds up to a 3.9% increase, less than the 4.1% increase we saw in May.

After this news came out, the price of digital money called Bitcoin dropped slightly to $55,300. But this is a tiny drop compared to the significant 10% drop it had in the last two days because there was too much Bitcoin available.

Before the job numbers were announced, people who buy and sell stuff (traders) didn’t think the U.S. Federal Reserve (in charge of money) would lower interest rates in July. But now, they believe a more than 70% chance rate will be reduced in September.

This week, the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, hinted that they might be more concerned about people finding jobs than about rising prices when deciding how to use money policies.

Even though more jobs were added in June than people thought, there are signs that things might need improvement. The number of jobs added in May and April was lower than first thought. Over the last three months, an average of 177,000 jobs were added each month, which is lower than the 249,000 jobs added each month in the previous quarter. After the jobs report came out, future prices of U.S. stocks went up slightly, while the return on a 10-year government loan (called a Treasury yield) fell slightly to 4.31%.

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