All eyes on Wall Street will be watching Thursday for the U.S. Department of Labor's scheduled update on nonfarm payrolls and the nation’s unemployment rate.
The Labor Department is expected to report that nonfarm payrolls declined in June for the fifth straight month. Federal Reserve officials expect the unemployment rate to rise from the current 5.5 percent by the end of the year.
Lehman Brothers economist Michelle Meyer expects June nonfarm payrolls will fall by 75,000 and that the unemployment rate will slip only a tenth of a percentage point to 5.4 percent.
Bank of America also is forecasting a decline in the unemployment rate to 5.4 percent; however it expects June payrolls to fall by only 20,000.
The economy has lost jobs every month this year. May's unemployment rate took its largest jump in 22 years, rising to 5.5 percent -- fueling fears of a pullback in consumer spending as soaring energy and food prices take their toll. The half-point rise was the biggest since February 1986.
May nonfarm payrolls declined 49,000 in May, according to the Labor Department. The decline was broad-based, including manufacturing, construction, retail trade and business services. U. S. employment fell by 285,000 while unemployment rose by 861,000.
Michigan's unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in May, the highest monthly level since 1992, according to the state Department of Labor & Economic Growth. June will complete the state's eighth consecutive year of payroll job loss, according to the University of Michigan's economic forecast for 2008 and 2009.
– By Ed Coury, senior editor and Midwest bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal Radio Network, Dow Jones & Co., and a reporter for WWJ Newsradio 950
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