Jobless Rate Steady At 4.0

WASHINGTON – The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 4 percent in July, close to a three-decade low of 3.9 percent in April, despite the loss of 108,000 payroll jobs during the month, the biggest setback in nine years. Labor continues to be hard to come by for landscape contractors in many areas of the country.

The job decline, however, came from 290,000 temporary government workers laid off in July because their work on the census was finished, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Private payrolls actually rose by 138,000 during the month, a sign that the nation's labor market remained extremely tight. The strength was spread across a number of sectors with manufacturing, financial services and retail trade all posting strong gains.

The 30-year low in April, rose to 4.1 percent in May and then edged down to hold at 4 percent in June and July keeping a tight labor market. The low number of potential employees is making it difficult for employers to fill jobs. As a result, average hourly earnings have climbed by 0.4 percent in July to $13.76 an hour – an acceleration from gains of 0.3 percent in June and 0.1 percent in May – as an incentive to keep employees at their current jobs.

For July, the drop in payroll jobs of 108,000 was the first decline since a fall of 69,000 in January 1996, a decline blamed on severe winter weather. And it was the biggest drop since a fall of 185,000 in April 1991, a period when the country was struggling to pull out of the l990-91 recession.