The unemployment rate in the USA continued the climb toward 10% in August in the aftermath of the credit crisis. Nonfarm payroll employment decline in August, by 216,000 more jobs, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.7%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Since December 2007, employment has fallen by 6.9 million jobs.
In August, the number of unemployed persons increased by 466,000 to 14.9
million, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.7%. The unemployment rates for adult men (10.1%), whites (8.9%), and Hispanics (13.0%) rose in August. The jobless rates for adult women (7.6%), teenagers (25.5%), and blacks (15.1%) were little changed over the month.
The civilian labor force participation rate remained at 65.5% in August. The employment-population ratio, at 59.2%, edged down over the month and has declined by 3.5 percentage points since the recession began in December 2007.
In August, the number of persons working part time for economic reasons was little changed at 9.1 million. These individuals indicated that they were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
In August, manufacturing employment continued to trend downward, with a decline of 63,000. The pace of job loss has slowed throughout manufacturing in recent months. Employment in health care continued to rise in August (28,000), with gains in ambulatory care and in nursing and residential care. Health care has added 544,000 jobs since the start of the recession.
In August, the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory
workers on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.1 hours.
The manufacturing workweek and factory overtime also showed no
change over the month (at 39.8 hours and 2.9 hours, respectively).
Related: Unemployment Rate Drops Slightly to 9.4% – posts on employment – May 2009 Unemployment Rate Jumps to 9.4% – California Unemployment Rate Climbs to 10.5 Percent (March 2009)
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Hi John – After reading this, I am worked up again. I really do not understand how the govt sees this as a true number but maybe I should stick to things I can understand, not economics!
Our rate here in this county is almost 13%. I don’t know if this only counts people actually receiving unemployment benefits or not, but supposedly it does not include several groups it should. One is people trying to return to the workforce after not working for years. Examples would be stay at home parents whose children are now grown. Or people who, because of economic reasons, have to return to work. I don’t think it includes people who have stopped looking for work, although I don’t know how that is tracked.
Supposedly if you count all the people here without a job that are looking or want to work, the rate is closer to 20%! Then if you include people who are in a job they would change out of in a better economy, and people who are working part time that want full time work, supposedly this number reaches close to 50%.
If these facts/assumptions I have read about are correct, what possible relevance does the govt’s number have to the reality of the workforce?