Today’s Jobs Report

The government reported that the unemployment rate for July was 5.0%, which was the same as June’s. Relatively speaking, that’s a pretty low number. The unemployment rate peaked at 6.3% in June of 2003. While the jobless rate has fallen since then, it was stuck around 5.4% for much of last year.

The economy created 207,000 new jobs last month, which was higher than expectations. The number of new jobs for June was revised higher to 166,000. For the last 17 months, the economy has created an average of about 195,000 jobs a month. That’s good, but it’s still well below what the economy did in the recoveries of the 80s and 90s. The economy averaged over 250,000 jobs for a 90-month period from November 1992 to May 2000.

Wall Street seems to be impressed by the current economy. We’re hearing talk that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates into next year. Also, some analysts are raising their GDP forecasts for next quarter.

Posted by on August 5th, 2005 at 10:01 am


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