The good news is the July numbers don't fall in line with June or May, which had collectively prompted alarmists to lean on the backslide-into-recession panic button. That doesn't appear as likely now. The bad news the unemployment numbers are stagnant. Ezra:
The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the unemployment rate stayed essentially unchanged, even nudging up slightly from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent (actually, if you want to get technical, it went from 8.22 percent to 8.25 percent).
The bright spot here is that the job market isn’t getting dramatically worse. Those 163,000 new jobs were more than forecasters expected. July’s jobs figures were also much better than the disappointing reports in May and June. The more troubling news, however, is that the economy isn’t getting dramatically better, either.
Again, the issue is this: in reaction to the sting of the recession, corporations and businesses are doing quite well by forcing employees to do more for the same pay. This way, they don't have to spend the cash to hire more people. After all, if you're pissed off about being multi-tasked to death for the same pay, what are you going to do? Quit? And go to what job?
More stimulus, please.