Quick recap --

The unemployment rate was unchanged in July at 9.5 percent with relatively small changes in the size of its underlying components (size of the labor force, the number of people employed and unemployed). See the "Household Survey" section at the bottom of this box for more detail.

The more interesting -- if you call not-so-good news interesting -- is in the jobs data. Although the total number of jobs declined by 131,000, this negative job growth number is a result of jobs ending for 143,000 workers temporarily hired for the 2010 Census. Remove them along with other government jobs from the calculations and the number of private-sector jobs grew, but by only 71,000 in July, after weaker 31,000 growth in June but 51,000 in May. Certainly not even close to robust job growth that many would like to see at this early stage of an economic recovery.

Jobs Report

The Goods-producing experienced a net gain of 33,000 jobs, which is certainly welcome news.

• The Construction sector is still looking for its mojo as is the entire housing sector (see Real estate in the Service-providing sector below) with a loss of 11,000 jobs in July, which was better than June's 21,000 loss. The only shimmer of hope is in Nonresidential specialty trade contractors that added 8,000 jobs in July.

• The data show Manufacturers adding jobs giving more credence to the Federal Reserve Board's commentary on the economy (above and here). Overall, Manufacturers added 36,000 jobs with the Transportation sub-sector really getting the sector moving with 27,600 new jobs.

Looking for more? Check out our podcasts!

Podcasts of the current employment situation will be available by 4:00 p.m. ET today, August 6th. The video podcast, which you can start and stop to study the tables and graphs as well as replay individual sections, also includes additional data and information.  Watch the video version here or just listen to the audio version here (no special hardware or software required).

• Mining and Logging added a total of 8,000 jobs in July that included 6,600 new jobs Support activities for mining.

• The Retail Trade sector, with a total of about 14.4 million jobs, after dropping around 20,000 jobs in June replenished its shelves with 6,700 more jobs in July.

• The Wholesale Trade sector, with about 5.6 million total jobs, added 8,400 jobs with gains in Durable goods (up 7,500) and Electronic markets and agents and brokers (up 2,700) more than making up for the loss in Nondurable goods (down 1,800).

• Things must be moving at Transportation and Warehousing, with a total of around 4.2 million jobs, since it added 12,200 jobs in July.

• Still not much interest in the Financial Activities sector, with about 7.6 million jobs, to add to their payroll since it eliminated 17,000 jobs. The Real estate sub-sector closed the door on 6,300 jobs and Rental and leasing services evicted 2,600 jobs.

• Professional and Business Services, with about 16.7 million jobs, was down 13,000 jobs with losses in most sub-sectors sans Computer systems design and related services, after an incremental decline of 600 jobs in June, bounced back with a gain of 5,800 in July.

• Education and Health Services continues perform as if unaffected by the overall economy -- 30,000 new jobs in July. Educational services, which is highly seasonally, added 2,100 jobs while Health care and social assistance added 27,800 new jobs in most major sub-sectors although there were some losses in Hospitals (down 2,300) and Child day care services (down 2,600). Home health care services added 9,200 jobs.

• The party in the Leisure and Hospitality sector continued but slowed in July with  6,000 new jobs after adding 21,000 in June. Although the Accommodation sub-sector added 9,800 jobs, Food services and drinking places reported some spoilage and threw out 10,600 jobs.

• The number of Government jobs took a dive in July (down 202,000) with the Federal government eliminating a total of 154,000 jobs (this includes dismissing 143,000 federal temporary Census 2010 workers),  but Local government cut 38,000 jobs, and State government cut 10,000.

Temporary Help Services Roundup

Temporary help services, after slower growth in June, unfortunately reversed direction in July and contracted by 5,600 jobs in July. Last month it was down 0.3 percent sequentially to 2,087,700, but up 19.3 percent from July 2009, its best year-over-year growth in at least 20 years. The Temporary help services sector has added more than 360,000 jobs, or has grown 21 percent, since it started to add jobs ten months ago but is still down more than 560,000 jobs from its December 2006 peak.

(if chart is unclear, click on it to open in a browser window)

And Temporary help service's market share also slipped from June's reading; in July, Temporary help services jobs were 1.6 percent of all jobs; it was about 1.3 percent a year earlier.

Household Survey

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent in July. That 9.5 percent unemployment rate is the result of a labor force that shrank by 181,000 while the number of them employed only declined by 159,000 and the number of unemployed persons dropped by 24,000. In plain English, the size of the labor force shrank by more than the decrease in the number of people employed while the number of unemployed also declined.

Those not in the labor force grew by 381,000. The employment-to-population ratio incrementally declined by 0.1 to 58.4 while the labor force participation rate similarly declined by 0.1 to 64.6 percent. And there were 50 percent more discouraged workers last month than a year earlier. This means that there 1.2 million discouraged workers in July and about 800,000 of them a year earlier.