June Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on payroll employment and unemployment for June (pdf summary available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf). Highlights of the report:

Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate edged up to 9.2% in June, from a level of 9.1% in May and 9.0% in April. 
• The number of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) edged up to 6.3 million in June, from 6.2 million in May.  The percent of long-term unemployed fell to 44.4% in June, from 45.1% in May. 
• The labor force fell by 272,000 in June and the labor force participation rate edged down to 64.1% in June, from 64.2% in May.  This marks the lowest rate of labor force participation since 1984.
• There were 14.1 million unemployed persons in June, up from 13.9 million in May and 13.7 million in April.

Payroll Employment

• Total non-farm payroll employment edged up by 18,000 in June, following gains of 25,000 in May (revised downwards from 54,000) and 217,000 in April (revised downwards from 232,000).  The 18,000 increase fell short of expectations for a gain of about 80,000, and also fell short of the 130,000 to 150,000 new jobs needed to keep up with population growth.  

o   Private sector employment rose by 57,000 while government employment fell by 39,000.

o   The largest private sector employment gains came from leisure and hospitality (+34,000), professional and technical services (+24,000), and health care (+14,000).

o   The average workweek fell by 0.1 hour to 34.3 hours for all private nonfarm employees. 

Job Gains by Sector since the Official Start and Official End of the Recession