Observations From The Trenches
When viewing these employment figures, it's helpful to understand that many businesses use 1 July as the beginning of their fiscal year. Annual budgets renew in July and having been in Human Resources for decades, I have noticed that there is often a spike in employment during July as departments rush to fill vacant positions while they have the budget space. BLS routinely makes a number of adjustments to their data, as the author points out, but the budget cycles of employers is not one of those adjustments.
The real test will be over the next few months, when we'll see if this is a trend or just a blip.