Trade deficit increases by $3.6 billion; Goods deficit with China hits $29.8 billion
The economy's overall employment went up in July, with the manufacturing sector gaining 9,000 jobs, according to the latest employment data from the Labor Department.
Meanwhile, new data from the Commerce Department shows that the goods and services trade deficit hit $44.5 billion in June, up $3.6 billion from $41 billion in May. The goods trade deficit with China hit $29.8 billion.
Said Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) President Scott Paul:
"Two months of very modest growth in manufacturing jobs is certainly better than negative territory, where we've been much of the past year. Now imagine the possibilities for factory jobs if we had better conditions, such as we would have with a robust infrastructure investment.
"We'll create even more opportunities to grow jobs here by cracking down on China's persistent cheating.
"Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been talking about these sorts of things on the campaign trail, which I'm happy to see. But it is just a start. The next president must make manufacturing job growth a priority."
The #AAMeter, which tracks President Obama's goal to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs, now sits at +345,000 jobs. That means there would need to be over 131,000 new manufacturing jobs created each month for Obama to hit his goal.