Unemployment rates tick up for August

09.04.09
By Timothy Jones

Despite some positive economic indicators in recent months which has given many hope that paying off credit card debt might be easier soon, job figures keep sagging as new numbers from the government indicate that the nation's unemployment rate continues to approach 10 percent.

Figures released today from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) finds that nonfarm payroll employment fell by 216,000 in August. This means the national unemployment rate now stands at 9.7 percent - up from 9.4 in July.

The uptick in unemployment is more than the 9.5 percent most Wall Street analysts had predicted and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com says that despite the slight drop in unemployment from June to July, it's going to be some time before real job gains happen.

"The job market is in for a slog," he told the New York Times. "It's going to be slow, incremental improvement, and it's the reason why the broader recovery's going to be very fragile."

When the economy does get back on track there will be a number of jobs to be filled to get the country back to pre-recession levels. According to the BLS, 6.9 million jobs have been lost since December of 2007.

While millions remain unemployed, one sector of the job force saw improvements in August. The report finds that healthcare jobs continued their upward trend as 28,000 jobs in the industry were added last month with most of the positions being filled in ambulatory care and nursing and residential care.

The government's figures come just a day after a report from ADP found that 298,000 jobs were lost last month. However, that report indicated that the trend of job losses was slowing with Macroeconomics Advisers chairman Joel Prakken saying that this could mean job gains by the end of the year.

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The August unemployment rate has reached 9.7 percent