Chart: Unemployment rate by month since January 2008

Both the number of unemployed persons, at 14.6 million, and the unemployment rate, at 9.5 percent, were unchanged in July, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[Chart data]

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.7 percent), adult women (7.9 percent), teenagers (26.1 percent), whites (8.6 percent), blacks (15.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.1 percent) showed little or no change in July. The jobless rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

In July, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 6.6 million. These individuals made up 44.9 percent of unemployed persons.

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.6 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.4 percent) were essentially unchanged in July; however, these measures have declined by 0.6 percentage point and 0.4 point, respectively, since April.

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged over the month at 8.5 million but has declined by 623,000 since April. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

There were 1.2 million discouraged workers in July, up by 389,000 from a year earlier (not seasonally adjusted). Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

This data is from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation — July 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-1076.