NEW YORK CITY—There was a mixture of a good news and bad in the US employment report issued just before the Fourth of July holiday weekend, observes Cushman & Wakefield's Ken McCarthy. On the negative side, the June numbers included downward revisions for the two previous months. On the positive side, 'the mix of jobs added in June was favorable for the commercial real estate sector and suggests that demand for all kinds of space continues to grow,” writes McCarthy, senior managing director and chief economist at C&W.

The three office-using sectors—financial; professional and business services; and information—added 91,000 jobs in total during June, for the largest increase in eight months, McCarthy writes. Increases for all three sectors were “solid,” he adds: 64,000 jobs for professional and business services, 20,000 for financial and 7,000 for information. For the retail sector, 32,900 positions were added, while the 16.4% increase in transportation and warehousing jobs since the expansion began bodes well for industrial.

For McCarthy, the June report's “biggest disappointment” was the lack of growth of average hourly earnings, which were flat from the previous month and up only 2% from a year ago. “With the unemployment rate at 5.3% and falling, and other labor market indicators pointing to wage growth, the lack of evidence in this report is a concern,” writes McCarthy.

One reason, he notes, is the mix of jobs created in June. A large number of new positions were in lower wage sectors such as retail and food services and drinking places, which added a collective 29,000 jobs.

Moreover, the June report also offset some of the positive signs on the wage front seen in 2015 to date. Over the first six months of the year, average hourly earnings have increased at a 2.7% annual rate, for the best six months since early 2009. Yet while wage growth is “edging higher,” it's not as strong as would be expected with unemployment this low and solid job growth.

“Larger increase in wages will be an important driver of growth in the second half of the year,” writes McCarthy. “Wages are edging higher, but we would like to see more improvement in this key driver of consumer spending.”

From the viewpoint of the Federal Reserve, the June employment numbers will have “little impact on monetary policy decision making,” in McCarthy's view. “Job growth continues at a healthy, but not excessive pace, in line with Fed policy makers expectations. So there is no reason to either accelerate or slow the planned shift to a tighter monetary policy with rising interest rates.”

McCarthy would also dispute any characterization of the current hiring picture as “the Goldilocks labor market”—i.e. not too hot, not too cold, but just right. “The economy could use stronger job growth for several months to start to push wages up more rapidly,” he writes. In the end, it will be the pace of wage growth that will determine economic performance for the balance of this year and next year. We aren't quite there yet, but the US is close to having labor markets that are 'just right.''