Recovery?

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July Employment Numbers

The unemployment rate decreased to 9.1% (red line).

The Labor Force Participation Rate declined to 63.9% in July (blue line). This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. This is a new cycle low - and the lowest participation rate since the early '80s.

The Employment-Population ratio declined to 58.1% in July (black line). This is also at a new cycle low and the lowest since the early '80s.

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July 2010 Unemployment Graphs

Longer. Deeper. And flat at the bottom. Unfortunately that describes the 2007 employment recession...

The Employment-Population ratio decreased to 58.4% in July from 58.5% in June...

The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 64.6% from 64.7% in June...
The reason the unemployment rate was steady at 9.5% was because people left the workforce - and that is not good news. As the employment picture improves, people will return to the labor force, and that will put upward pressure on the unemployment rate...

According to the BLS, there are 6.572 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This is 4.3% of the civilian workforce, just below the record set last month.

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Employment Population Ratio: 58.6%

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