US companies added 187,000 workers to payrolls in June, a moderate improvement over the upwardly revised 159,000 increase in the previous month, the Labor Department reports. That’s a healthy gain that suggests the economy overall remains on a positive track for the near term. But the year-over-year trend continues to point to softer growth generally for the labor market – a sign that economic activity may be vulnerable to deceleration in the second half of the year.
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Commercial and industrial lending in the US has been flat for the past six months, the longest stretch of sluggishness in six years. The static trend is weighing on the year-over-year change: business loans increased by just 2.0% in May, the softest increase since 2011, according to Federal Reserve data.
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