Job Losses Slow, But Unemployment Rate Ticks Higher to 9.7%
August nonfarm payroll declined another 216,000 and the unemployment rate rose to 9.7% from 9.4%. The Nonfarm payrolls change was better than the consensus of a 230,000 decline, but the unemployment rate was above the expected 9.5% rate.
Although job losses continued in many of the major industry sectors in August, the declines have moderated in recent months.
In August, the number of unemployed persons increased by 466,000 to 14.9 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.3% to 9.7%. The rate had been little changed in June and July, after in- creasing 0.4 or 0.5 percentage point in each month from December 2008 through May. Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 7.4 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 4.8% points.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.1 percent), whites (8.9 percent), and Hispanics (13.0 percent) rose in August. The jobless rates for adult women (7.6 percent), teenagers (25.5 percent), and blacks (15.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
After ticking lower in July, the U-6, which some call the real unemployment number, rose to 16.8% in August. It was 16.3% in July and 16.5% in June.
The U-6 is Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers. Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.
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