The Employment Situation: June 1999 — 1999-07-02

Payroll employment rose in June, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 4.3 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 268,000. Employment increased in construction and throughout the service-producing sector, but job losses continued in manufacturing and mining. The number of unemployed persons, 6.0 million, and the unemployment rate, 4.3 percent, were essentially unchanged in June. The jobless rate has been below 4.5 percent since November 1998. Unemployment rates for the major demographic groups--adult men (3.6 percent), adult women (3.9 percent), teenagers (13.5 percent), whites (3.8 percent), blacks (7.3 percent), and Hispanics (6.8 percent)--remained the same or were virtually unchanged in June. (See tables A-1 and A-2.) The number of unemployed persons who were new entrants to the labor force--that is, they were looking for their first jobs--declined in June to 349,000.