In July, the number of unemployed people in the U.S. increased by 352,000 to 7.2 million, even as nonfarm payroll enrollment edged up by 114,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday.
“Employment continued to trend up in health care, in construction, and in transportation and warehousing, while information lost jobs,” said the bureau.
Information is a category under service-providing industries. It covers publishing industries, motion picture and sound recording industries, broadcasting industries, telecommunications industries, Web search portals, data processing industries, and the information services industries. Per the bureau, this category lost 20,000 jobs last month.
Overall, the nation’s unemployment rate increased by 0.2% to 4.3% in July. Unemployment rates for adult men and white people increased, while the rates for other demographic groups remained steady. At the same time last year, the jobless rate was 3.5% and the number of unemployed people was at 5.9 million.
While the number of unemployed people increased last month, the number of people who are not in the labor force who wanted a job increased even more. According to the BLS, it rose by 366,000 in July to 5.6 million people in total, “largely offsetting a decline in the previous month.”
For the past 12 months, the average total nonfarm payroll employment monthly gain was 215,000. Compared to that amount, the 114,000 figure is substantially down.
WalletHub released a report on states where unemployment claims were rising one day before the BLS report was released.
“Most recently, the job market continued to falter, with new unemployment claims increasing by 6% week-over-week on July 22,” said the personal finance website. Here are the top 10 states where claims increased the most, per WalletHub’s findings:
1. Massachusetts
2. Michigan
3. Missouri
4. Iowa
5. North Dakota
6. Minnesota
7. Nevada
8. Kansas
9. Colorado
10. Virginia
Along with unemployment, inflation is something the Federal Reserve Bank considers when making decisions about interest rates. These rates contribute to growing expenses and therefore can be a factor in businesses cutting jobs. This Wednesday, the Fed announced it would keep rates flat – though it did already increase them several times in recent years in an effort to slow spending and bring COVID-19 pandemic-related inflation down.
“Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. Job gains have moderated, and the unemployment rate has moved up but remains low,” said the bank in a Wednesday Federal Open Market Committee statement. “Inflation has eased over the past year but remains somewhat elevated. In recent months, there has been some further progress toward the Committee’s 2% inflation objective.”
However, the statement said that the committee doesn’t plan to bring rates down until it “has gained greater confidence,” that inflation is truly towards 2%.
In June, inflation declined by 0.1%, bringing the average increase over the previous 12-month period to 3%. Later this month, the BLS is expected to release its report on the Consumer Price Index for July and reveal whether inflation increased, decreased or stayed flat.