"I don't want to put a positive face on this because this marks seven straight months of job losses and the nation has a seriously challenged employment situation, but I guess it's all a matter of degree. Given the economy's serious condition, it's amazing that we haven't seen 100,000 per month job losses," Langan said.

Langan said he believes part of the reason for the relatively restrained job layoffs is the fact that the 2002-2007 U.S. economic recovery was one of the weakest -- from a job creation standpoint -- in the post World War II era.

"We didn't see that surge in hiring that has characterized previous expansions. In fact, growth averaged about 2.6% in the period and it was the weakest expansion for hiring in about 30 years. As a result, because companies did not add much to payrolls during the expansion, they don't have to pare back payrolls now, because they're already much leaner," Langan said.

Further, Langan said the July jobs report "creates a really difficult call" for the U.S. Federal Reserve, when it meets to discuss short-term interest rates on Tuesday at 2:15 p.m EDT. He said that most likely, "the Fed will keep rates the same at 2%."

By sector, in July, goods producing companies cut 46,000 jobs, services declined 30,000, manufacturing fell 35,000, and construction saw a 22,000 job loss; health care added 33,000 jobs.

Economic Analysis: As economist Langan noted, the July report was not as bad as many economists had feared, so in that sense the glass is partially full, if one chooses to put the most-positive spin on the employment situation. Still, the U.S economy continues to lose jobs, something that must reverse, for a sustained recovery occur. At this juncture, the sense is that many economists expect job losses to continue through the fall, with the unemployment rate rising to near 6.0% before a recovery starts, hopefully by Q1 2008.