The Employment Situation: June 2003 — 2003-07-03

Nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in June, while the unemployment rate rose to 6.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll job losses continued in manufacturing, but were partly offset by employment increases in other industries. The number of unemployed persons increased by 360,000 in June to 9.4 mil- lion, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.4 percent. Since March, unemployment has increased by 913,000. The rate for adult men edged up for the third month in a row; at 6.1 percent, the jobless rate for this group was 0.8 percentage point higher than in March. The teenage unemployment rate, at 19.3 percent, has trended up since the beginning of the year. Over the month, the unemployment rate for blacks increased to 11.8 percent. Jobless rates for the other major worker groups--adult women (5.2 percent), whites (5.5 percent), and Hispanics (8.4 percent)--showed little change from May.