The Employment Situation: July 2004 — 2004-08-06

Nonfarm employment was little changed (+32,000) in July, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment levels in most of the major industry sectors were little changed over the month. Both the number of unemployed persons, 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate, 5.5 percent, were essentially unchanged in July. The unemployment rate has shown little movement since December 2003. The jobless rates for the major worker groups--adult men (4.9 percent), adult women (4.9 percent), teenagers (17.6 percent), whites (4.8 percent), blacks (10.9 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (6.8 percent)--also were little changed over the month. The unemploy- ment rate for Asians was 4.3 percent in July, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) Total employment rose by 629,000 to 139.7 million in July, and the employ- ment population ratio--the proportion of the population age 16 and over with jobs--increased to 62.5 percent.