Implications:  The wild ride continues.  After plummeting at the fastest pace ever in April, nonfarm payrolls rose at the fastest pace ever in May and have done so again in June, adding 4.8 million jobs for the month.  Even better, almost all of the gain was in the private sector, with leisure and hospitality leading the way, while retail, education & health services, and manufacturing also added a substantial number of jobs, as well. The labor market has a long road ahead to be fully-healed, but, in the past two months, has recovered one-third of the payrolls lost in March and April.  Civilian employment, an alternative measure of jobs that includes small-business start-ups, tells a similar story, up 4.94 million in June and also regaining in May and June one-third of the employment lost in March and April.  Another piece of relatively good news is that the unemployment rate, which the consensus expected to come in at 12.5%, arrived at 11.1%, instead.  That's still very high by historical standards, but much lower than the peak of 14.7% in April.  The labor force (people working or looking for work) increased by 1.7 million in June after a similar gain in May, although it's still down substantially from earlier this year.  The worst headline of the report was that average hourly earnings fell 1.2% in June.  However, recent declines are a return to normal after a huge surge in April.  Job losses in April were concentrated among lower-paid workers, so average hourly earnings rose because those still working typically made more money.  Now, as lower-paid workers are rehired, their pay levels reduce average earnings.  We like to track what the report means for workers' earnings, and today's news was good.  Total hours worked increased 3.6% in June. Multiplying hours by earnings shows that total earnings rose 2.4%.  That said, total earnings are still down 4.3% versus a year ago, which means workers have less purchasing power generated by actual production, versus purchasing power coming from government benefits.  As we said last month, the unemployment rate is going to remain at unusually high levels for at least the next few months, but today's report is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit and how quickly businesses have been able to adapt to a global pandemic and unprecedented shutdowns of the US economy.  A full recovery is still a long way off, but there should no doubt at this point that the recovery has started. 

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