Employment reports shows fewer jobs than expected were lost in July

Posted Aug 7th 2009 9:40AM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Good news, Employees, Economic Data

247,000 US jobs were lost in July, far less than the 320,000 that were expected. The unemployment rate eased slightly to 9.4% from 9.5% in June. And there was more good news -- 43,000 fewer jobs were lost in May and June than previously reported.

The Labor Department reported that this was the first time since April 2008 that the jobless rate has fallen. Official numbers show that 6.7 million jobs were lost since the start of the recession.

The number by sectors were:

Manufacturing lost 52,000 jobs.
Payrolls in construction fell by 76,000.
In the service sector 119,000 workers were laid off.
Goods and services sector cut 128,000 positions.

Only Education and health services added jobs with an increase of 17,000. This was down, however, from the 37,000 added in June.

Overall, the report is a tad better. However, if you look at the above losses, we still are losing jobs in every sector except education and health. Still disheartening is that we lost 128,000 jobs in manufacturing and construction.

Analysts attribute the smaller-than-expected job loss to the Obama stimulus program.

Do you agree that the economy has turned the corner?

Tags: employment, inthenews, jobs, nonfarm payroll, NonfarmPayroll, unemployment