Friday, August 07, 2009

Unemployed Now 14.5 Million, Rate 9.4 Percent


Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in July (-247,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The average monthly job loss for May through July
(-331,000) was about half the average decline for November through April (-645,000). In July, job losses continued in many of the major industry sectors.
Subscribe to All American Investor via Email


Household Survey Data

In July, the number of unemployed persons was 14.5 million. The
unemployment rate was 9.4 percent, little changed for the second
consecutive month. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups,
  • unemployment rates for adult men (9.8percent),
  • adult women (7.5 percent),
  • teenagers (23.8 percent),
  • whites(8.6 percent),
  • blacks (14.5 percent),
  • Hispanics (12.3 percent)
  • and Asians was 8.3
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more)
rose by 584,000 over the month to 5.0 million.
In July, 1 in 3 unemploy-
ed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more. (See table A-9.)

The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2 percentage
point in July to 65.5 percent. The employment-population ratio, at 59.4
percent, was little changed over the month but has declined by 3.3 per-
centage points since the recession began in December 2007. (See
table A-1.)

The number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes
referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in July
at 8.8 million. The number of such workers rose sharply in the fall and
winter but has been little changed for 4 consecutive months.
(See table A-5.)

About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force
in July, 709,000 more than a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally
adjusted.) These individuals, who were not in the labor force, wanted
and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the
prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had
not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See
table A-13.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 796,000 discouraged workers
in July, up by 335,000 over the past 12 months.
(The data are not
seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently
looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.
The other 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force
in July had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey
for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Source BLS

Bob DeMarco is a citizen journalist and twenty year Wall Street veteran. Bob has written more than 700 articles with more than 18,000 links to his work on the Internet. Content from All American Investor has been syndicated on Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Pluck, Blog Critics, and a growing list of newspaper websites. Bob is actively seeking syndication and writing assignments.


Kindle: Amazon's 6" Wireless Reading Device