July 1999 — 1999-07-02

Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Good morning. I am pleased to have this opportunity to discuss the June employment and unemployment estimates that we released this morning. The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged in June, at 4.3 percent. It has been between 4.2 and 4.4 percent since last November. Nonfarm employment, as measured by our establishment survey, increased by 268,000 in June, well above the monthly average for the first 5 months of this year (189,000). There were sizable over-the- month job gains in many service-producing industries, but manufacturing and mining employment continued to decline. The services industry added 151,000 jobs in June, compared with a monthly average of 119,000 for the prior 12 months.