From a Joint Economic Committee release:
June Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on employment and unemployment for June (BLS pdf summary available [here].).
Highlights of the report:
· Non-farm payroll employment increased by 121,000 net new jobs in June.
· In the past 34 consecutive months with payroll job gains, over 5.4 million new jobs have been created.
· Over the year ending in June, 1.85 million net new payroll jobs have been created.
· The unemployment rate (calculated from the household survey of employment) remained at 4.6% in May.
o At 4.6 percent, the unemployment rate is well below the recent peak of 6.3 percent in June 2003 and below the averages of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
· Average hourly earnings increased by 8 cents in June and have risen over the past year by 3.9 percent.