BLS set to release July jobs report as wage growth outpaces inflation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release the July 2026 Employment Situation on Friday, Aug. 7, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, giving workers, employers, markets and policymakers the next major national update on the labor market.

The report will cover employment and unemployment in July. As of Aug. 6, the July figures were not yet available, so the scheduled release does not establish whether hiring, unemployment or wages increased or declined during the month.

What the next report will show

The Employment Situation is the federal government’s next major scheduled national labor-market release. It is expected to provide the official July update on employment and unemployment, while also serving as a closely watched measure of hiring, wages and overall labor-market strength.

The release is produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and covers the U.S. labor market. The agency’s 2026 release schedule lists the report for 8:30 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 7. A BLS report on the June 2026 employment situation also confirmed that date for the next release.

The timing matters because the data will give national audiences a new basis for assessing current job conditions. Workers and employers will be watching for evidence of how hiring is holding up, while markets and policymakers will use the figures as another indicator of economic strength.

Latest wage data

The most recent wage figures available from BLS come from the second quarter of 2026, rather than from July’s employment report. The agency said median weekly earnings for the nation’s 120.9 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,251 during the quarter.

Those median weekly earnings were 4.6% higher than in the second quarter of 2025. BLS also reported that the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, known as CPI-U, rose 3.9% over the same period.

The earnings measure therefore increased 0.7 percentage points faster than the cited CPI-U measure over the year. It is important, however, to keep the measures distinct: the BLS figure is median weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers, not average hourly earnings and not a July employment result.

“Median” identifies the midpoint of the reported earnings distribution, meaning half of the workers in the measure earned more and half earned less. The packet does not provide a breakdown by industry, occupation, state or individual worker, so the national figure should not be treated as a measure of pay for every worker.

What happens next

BLS is scheduled to publish the July report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 7. Until then, any claim about July payrolls, the unemployment rate or July wage performance would go beyond the approved data.

The release could be delayed or revised after publication, according to the agency information supplied for this report. Readers should also expect the July employment figures to be separate from the second-quarter earnings data already available.

The central question for the new release is how the labor market’s employment and unemployment measures changed in July. The latest wage data provide context for that question, but they do not predict the direction of the jobs report.