Even if jobs were lost in July, the unemployment rate in the United States is still around 9.5 percent.

Last month, some 131,000 jobs have been lost.

Many Americans gave up looking for work, data from the Labor Department showed.

Meanwhile, credit card purchases are also decreasing. In a consumption-driven economy like the one the US has, this could mean that a complete economic recovery could still be very far away.

However, the Labor Department’s report also has some positive aspects. The work week has increased by an hour, and so have the average earnings for an hour of work. The said payment has been increased by 4 cents, to $22.59.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 15 years of age) using two different labor force surveys conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or “Household Survey,” conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. The Current Employment Statistics survey (CES), or “Payroll Survey,” conducts a survey based on a sample of 160,000 businesses and government agencies that represent 400,000 individual employers.

(Thanks to News Provider and Wikipedia)