President Obama has touted the ‘economic recovery‘ as one of his accomplishments. He might want to be a little quieter about that as the latest jobs figures and the numbers behind them indicate a very slow recovery.

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the jobs numbers just released.

Some highlights from the article:

While last month’s overall gain of 38,000 jobs, including a 25,000 rise in private payrolls, was dragged down temporarily by the labor strike of 35,000 Verizon (VZ) communications workers, the weakness was broad-based. On net, just 51.3% of industries added jobs, the lowest since February 2010, Labor Department data showed.

…One decent bit of news in the employment report is that the trend of firming wages remained intact, as hourly pay rose 0.2% from April and 2.5% from a year ago. That’s consistent with anecdotal reports of companies having to pay more to attract or keep good workers, and many finding qualified workers in short supply.

…The drop in the unemployment rate to 4.7% from 5% in April appears at first to be consistent with a tight labor market. Still, the sudden drop in joblessness, which reflected fewer people in the workforce rather than an increase in employment, should be taken with a grain of salt, given the household survey’s higher margin of error.

…The reality portrayed by the weak jobs report got some confirmation from the Institute for Supply Management’s survey of non-manufacturing industries, with the index slipping to a 28-month low of 52.9 in May from 55.7 in April — well below expectations. The employment gauge fell into negative territory, dropping 3.3 points to 49.7, just below the neutral 50 level.

…Somehow, the retail sector has seemingly defied gravity when it comes to employment, adding 11,400 jobs last month and 323,000 over the past year. The explanation may be that the workweek has shrunk, since aggregate hours of work in the retail industry are down 0.3% over the past three months.

So what is the bottom line? Workforce participation is down, job growth is slow, and the number of hours people are working has gone down. That doesn’t sound like a robust economic recovery to me. It is definitely time for a change of direction. As I have previously stated, I am not a Trump supporter, but I will vote for him because I believe that he may have the business experience to turn this mess around.