The Employment Situation in July 2008, a report that is released by U.S. department of labor has not shown very encouraging results. In the month of July, 51,000 people lost jobs, which include adult men, whites, adult women, blacks, teenagers, Asians and Hispanics. The unemployment rate in the month of July has jumped from 5.5 to 5.7 percent. In the last 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 1.6 million and it has now reached 8.8 million. The unemployment rate has risen by 1.0 percentage point.
Contrary to the downside, July also saw a huge number of re-entrants in the labor force. The number has risen from 207,000 to 2.7 million in July. The number has increased by 623,000 over the past 12 months. On the other hand, the number of unemployed persons who had lost their last jobs remained unchanged over the month at 4.4 million, but did rise by 778,000 over the year.
Industry wise, employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries. The employment in the information industry declined by 13,000 in July and by 44,000 over the past 12 months, and the telecommunications sector lost 5,000 jobs in July. However, employment in health care continued to increase with a gain of 33,000 in July. The employment in this sector has been encouraging and has added 368,000 jobs over the past 12 months. Average hourly earnings rose by 6 cents, or 0.3 percent, over the month.
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