The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in July 2013. The retail sector remains a big contribution to new employment, as it has been throughout the year.
"You’re always going to have jobs in the retail sector,” says Michael Evangelist, a policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project.
Part-time jobs, many of them in retail, contributed to 65% of the new hires.
Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West, thinks concerns about the surge in part-time work might be overblown. The government’s figures on part-time jobs are highly volatile, Anderson notes.