(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. saw stronger than expected job growth in June, as the economy added 372,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

The data shows moderately lower but robust job growth, despite aggressive borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve.

The leisure and hospitality industry continued to show strong growth, adding 67,000 jobs, though a slight dip from the positions added over the month prior. Jobs were also added in health care and professional and business services.

The labor force participation rate, a measure of working-age Americans who hold jobs or are actively looking for one, inched down to 62.2% in June, suggesting that workers still remain on the sidelines. That figure stands 1.2 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels seen in February 2020.

Wage increases — a key metric for observers of inflation focused on consumer demand — rose 0.3% over last month and 5.1% over the past year. Those measures are largely unchanged from the report released a month prior.

The new data arrives at a precarious moment. Across the economy, acute financial distress could grow as the Fed pursues a series of rate hikes that aim to dial back sky-high inflation but risks tipping the economy into a recession. At its most recent meeting, last month, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate increase since 1994.

“It’s amazing how head-spinning the predictions of the economy have been,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School for Social Resarch. “Inflation was the top issue before the Fed met last month and now it’s recession,” she added.

Heightening the sense of economic uncertainty, the S&P 500 suffered its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970, falling 20.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further over that period, dropping more than 28%.

Economic data released this week presented a mixed picture of the job market. Employers posted 11.3 million job openings in May, a dropoff from the peak of 11.8 million in March but far higher than pre-pandemic levels, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday. The statistics indicate that demand for workers dipped but remained strong in May.

On the other hand, data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed that jobless claims stood at 235,000 last week, an increase of 4,000 from the week prior and the highest seen since mid-January. The data suggests that the tight labor market may be loosening, a possible sign of an economic slowdown.

Ghilarducci, the labor economist, cautioned that the persistence of a low unemployment rate in June may not mean that the economy remains in good shape, since the unemployment rate often lags behind overall economic trends.

“The unemployment rate is a note from a different time,” she said.

Still, the White House and the Federal Reserve are watching closely to see if jobs data reveals anything about their difficult tight-rope walk of fighting sky-high prices by slowing down demand, while simultaneously avoiding the type of steep slowdown that could cause a recession.

In recent months, strong hiring had turned the monthly jobs report into a recurring indicator of the hot U.S. labor market.

Prior to May, the U.S. enjoyed a streak of 12 straight months in which it added at least 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, for the past three months of jobs data — from March to May — the unemployment rate has stood at 3.6%, a tick above the 3.5% unemployment rate that the U.S. saw in February 2020.

On Friday, April and May numbers were revised to show 74,000 fewer jobs added in those months.

ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — As recession fears grow, officials on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C., will be watching employment data on Friday to see if aggressive borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve have slowed a monthslong stretch of robust U.S. hiring — suggesting economic activity may be quieting down.

The jobs report is expected to show that U.S. employers hired 273,000 workers last month, a marked slowdown in payrolls from the 390,000 jobs added during the month prior, according to a survey from Bloomberg. The survey predicts that the unemployment rate will remain at 3.6%.

The new data arrives at a precarious moment. Across the economy, acute financial distress could grow as the Fed pursues a series of rate hikes that aim to dial back sky-high inflation but risks tipping the economy into a recession. At its most recent meeting, last month, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate increase since 1994.

“It’s amazing how head-spinning the predictions of the economy have been,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School for Social Resarch. “Inflation was the top issue before the Fed met last month and now it’s recession,” she added.

Heightening the sense of economic uncertainty, the S&P 500 suffered its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970, falling 20.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further over that period, dropping more than 28%.

Economic data released this week presented a mixed picture of the job market. Employers posted 11.3 million job openings in May, a dropoff from the peak of 11.8 million in March but far higher than pre-pandemic levels, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday. The statistics indicate that demand for workers dipped but remained strong in May.

On the other hand, data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed that jobless claims stood at 235,000 last week, an increase of 4,000 from the week prior and the highest seen since mid-January. The data suggests that the tight labor market may be loosening, a possible sign of an economic slowdown.

Ghilarducci, the labor economist, cautioned that the persistence of a low unemployment rate in June may not mean that the economy remains in good shape, since the unemployment rate often lags behind overall economic trends.

“The unemployment rate is a note from a different time,” she said.

Still, the White House and the Federal Reserve will be watching closely to see if the data reveals anything about their difficult tight-rope walk of fighting sky-high prices by slowing down demand, while simultaneously avoiding the type of steep slowdown that could cause a recession.

In recent months, strong hiring has turned the monthly jobs report into a recurring indicator of the hot U.S. labor market.

Prior to May, the U.S. enjoyed a streak of 12 straight months in which it added at least 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, for the past three months of jobs data — from March to May — the unemployment rate has stood at 3.6%, a tick above the 3.5% unemployment rate that the U.S. saw in February 2020.

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(NEW YORK) — Days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a slew of major U.S. companies said they will cover travel costs for employees who cannot access an abortion where they live.

High-profile brands like Apple, Target, Starbucks, Amazon and Disney, ABC News’ parent company, are among those that vowed to help employees afford such travel, as 26 states are “certain or likely” to ban abortion in the aftermath of the court ruling, the Guttmacher Institute predicted in October. In several states, abortion bans have already taken hold.

But the new policies position companies as a key bulwark for abortion rights in states banning the procedure, raising concerns over the privacy of employees who may share intimate details of their personal lives in order to access the subsidy for travel costs. Fear of retribution or discrimination based on the desire to access the employee benefit could dissuade women from using it, experts told ABC News.

Assessing such privacy concerns is difficult in the early days of these policies, when companies are still figuring out exactly what implementation will require and the state-by-state legal environment remains in flux, the experts said. They added that federal law offers robust, albeit incomplete protection for the confidentiality of medical information, urging companies to administer the plan through a health insurer rather than deliver the benefit directly.

“Women should not assume with these policies that their privacy is absolutely 100% guaranteed,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at Northwestern University. “On the other hand, there are protections.”

“We risk the situation in which the fear itself becomes a more formidable barrier to access to needed care than the actual laws,” she added.

A central question for the new policies covering travel for abortion procedures hinges on whether companies administer the subsidy through an insurer or do it themselves, experts said.

If the benefit is provided through an insurer, then employees will retain the strong privacy protections that they receive whenever pursuing a medical procedure or health benefit through employer-provided health insurance, said Sharona Hoffman, a health law professor at Case Western Reserve University. In such cases, HIPAA prevents the release of medical information about a patient, she added.

If a company provides the benefit directly, then those same privacy protections will not apply. “HIPAA doesn’t apply to employers — there’s no HIPAA privacy coverage,” Hoffman said.

She noted that federal law does offer some confidentiality protections for sensitive medical information held by an employer through the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“If they learn somebody has HIV or cancer, they can’t disclose that to anyone else, unless they have to disclose it to a supervisor who has to provide accommodations to personnel,” she said, noting that it’s unclear how such protections will apply in the case of women seeking to use a company’s coverage for abortion-related travel.

Experts also emphasized the uncertain implications of potential legislation that may aim to prevent people from traveling to other states for an abortion. If such a law took effect and empowered law enforcement to subpoena information from companies or insurers that administer the travel subsidy, then they could be forced to turn over information.

“There’s a HIPAA exception for law enforcement,” said Hoffman, the health law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “Even health care providers have to respond to requests from law enforcement.”

Companies must establish guidelines for how they will respond to potential legal attacks on their policies, said Sonja Spoo, the director of reproductive rights campaigns at the feminist advocacy group UltraViolet.

“If you’re going to provide these benefits to workers, you need to make sure you have a plan in place to protect them,” she said. “Make sure employees are safe from attempts by whoever is in power to see information and weaponize it.”

ABC News posed questions about privacy concerns to 20 top companies that have announced policies that cover travel for employees who cannot access abortion nearby. Eight companies responded, of which seven provided a general comment about their policies but did not answer questions about privacy protections.

One company, Yelp, responded directly to questions from ABC News about privacy concerns regarding its policy.

“​​The privacy and safety of our employees were critical to how we would introduce this benefit, which is administered through our health insurance provider, ensuring confidentiality,” a Yelp spokesperson told ABC News. “Yelp will never receive any information on who incurred a claim and/or received reimbursement.”

Several companies responded to privacy questions about their policies covering employee travel with general statements on the new policies, including Bank of America, Lyft, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

“We intend to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the extent permitted by law, for employees who will need them to access out-of-state health care and reproductive services,” a Meta spokesperson told ABC News. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved.”

As the political and legal terrain shifts, companies will need to constantly adapt to ensure employee information remains private, Kirsten Vignec, an employment attorney at the law firm Hill Ward Henderson, told ABC News.

“​​This is the beginning — not the end — of the transition as a result of the change in precedent,” she said.

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