Heritage analysts Rea Hederman and James Sherk write about the June Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment reportr: “(BLS) announced that net employment increased by 431,000 in May, and that the unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent. While this appears to be good news, 411,000 of those new jobs are temporary government jobs associated with hiring for the decennial census. The private sector created only 41,000 jobs. More Americans exiting the labor force also had an effect on the drop in the unemployment rate. The private sector labor market remains far from a recovery.”

Sherk and Hederman continue:

The payroll survey reported 431,000 new jobs for May. However, almost all of that job creation occurred in the government. May is the peak month for temporary jobs associated with the decennial census, and the federal government hired 411,000 more temporary census workers in May alone. Government hiring increased by 390,000, as these temporary jobs offset job losses in state (–15,000) and local government (–7,000). Educational hiring has not been affected, as local governments increased the number of educational jobs (1,300), while state government education slightly reduced hiring (–2,500).

The private sector struggled create jobs (1,000), though almost every industry but construction (–35,000) and retail trade (–6,600) added jobs. Manufacturing (29,000) continues to add workers and has averaged slightly over 25,000 new jobs per month for the last five months.

In the service sector, financial trade (–12,000) continued to struggle with the housing market as the majority of the lost jobs were in the real estate industry (–7,300). The transportation and warehousing industry (11,100) grew in the last month with steady growth throughout the sector. Professional and business services was up (22,000) despite the drop off in accounting (–10,200). The majority of these professional jobs resulted from the continued growth in temporary help services (31,000). The health care industry had its smallest growth of the decade (8,000) as hospitals reduced employment (–3,300).

Read their full report, here.