Commissioner's Statement on the Employment Situation — 2007-07-06

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. Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 132,000 in June, and the unemployment rate held at 4.5 percent. The June employment increase followed gains of 122,000 in April and 190,000 in May, as revised. In the first half of 2007, job growth averaged 145,000 per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 189,000 in 2006. In June, employment increased in several service-providing industries, while manufacturing employment continued to decline. Within education and health services, health care added 30,000 jobs in June; over the past year, employment in health care has grown by 371,000. Over the month, employ- ment continued to trend up in private education and in social assistance. Recently, job growth has picked up in social assistance; the industry has added 46,000 jobs in the 4-month period since February.