• U.S. employers added 222,000 jobs in June, but an influx of recent college grads into the market likely helped push the unemployment rate up slightly to 4.4 percent.
• The health care industry continued to add jobs at a rapid clip in June, but employment in automotive and auto parts manufacturing fell for the third month in a row.
• Wages grew 2.5 percent year-over-year in June, in line with the pace from prior months and strong enough to outpace inflation but not enough to leave much left over to sing about.

June has historically seen relatively strong employment gains, as recent college grads land their first jobs. In contrast to many of their older siblings who graduated into the Great Recession a decade ago, much of the class of 2017 likely already had jobs lined up well before graduation, and are starting to collect their first paychecks. Rent growth also traditionally picks up in June, as these same grads enter the rental market. Wages continued to grow at roughly the same unexciting, but positive, annual pace as in prior months, offering little relief to today’s renters that are spending a larger portion of their paychecks on rent than any time in recent memory. Still, rent growth has slowed in recent months as new supply hits the market in many of the country’s largest metro areas. And even though rents remain high by historic standards, renters who can afford higher-end units in particular are increasingly being offered rent concessions as landlords compete to lease-up all those additional units. Although the unemployment rate edged up,  the combination of a very tight labor market and still historically low mortgage rates has contributed to an extraordinarily competitive home buying market this summer. Never before have mortgage rates been so low when the US labor market is at full employment.