The pace of job growth in July was unchanged from the 1.7 percent annual rate of previous months, but the details suggest an economy that will do modestly better for the rest of the year. Most importantly, jobs in business services were up 3.5 percent from last year.
Business services is one of the largest sectors of the economy, on a par with health care and government, and bigger than retail or manufacturing. Earlier this year it was growing at a 3 percent rate, in the last few months around 3.5 percent; it seems only a small increase but it means that businesses are expanding again.