Recovery by leading world economies may be peaking, particularly in the United States, a leading indicator published by the OECD showed on Friday. But Germany seems set for continuing “relatively robust” performance. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said its monthly index of pointers to the direction of expansion in leading economies, known as the composite leading indicators (CLI), “decreased by 0.1 point in June.” It said that the CLI indicators of the outlook in “France, Italy, China and India all point to below trend growth in coming months, whilst the CLI for the United Kingdom points to a peak in the pace of expansion.” It said: “Stronger signs of a peak in expansion have also emerged in Brazil and Canada, and in the United States the CLI has turned negative for the first time since February 2009.” The indicators for Japan and Russia pointed to coming slowdowns in the pace of expansion. But for Germany “the CLI remains relatively robust.” However, in Washington, companies showed a lack of confidence about hiring for a third straight month in July, making it likely the US economy will grow more slowly the rest of the year. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent. Private employers added a net total of only 71,000 jobs in July, far below the roughly 200,000 needed each month to reduce the unemployment rate. The modest gains were even weaker when considering a loss of government jobs at the local, state and federal levels in July that weren't temporary census position. Factoring those in, the net gains were only 12,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department's July report Friday. The department also sharply revised down its jobs figures for June, saying businesses hired fewer workers than previously estimated. June's private-sector job gains were lowered to 31,000 from 83,000. May's were raised slightly to show 51,000 net new jobs, from 33,000. Overall, the economy lost a net total of 131,000 jobs last month, mostly because 143,000 temporary census jobs ended. The slow pace of hiring will weigh on the recovery, he said, with economic growth in the current quarter likely to come in even lower than the April-to-June quarter's already weak 2.4 percent.
