The Labor Department released its unemployment statistics for June on Thursday. It showed the official unemployment rate was 11.1% -- 2.2% below the figure for May. It showed there were 17,750,000 unemployed workers out of a civilian workforce of 159,932,000.
The official numbers are a bit misleading. They only cover the first couple of weeks of the month. That means they don't include the 2.9 million people who filed an unemployment claim in the last two weeks -- or the workers who are still having problems filing a claim in the overburdened state unemployment offices. The real figure of unemployed workers is likely north of 20 million, and the actual unemployment rate is probably closer to 13%.
The Labor Department also said 4.8 million jobs were created in June. That's ridiculous. I doubt any new jobs were created in this recession. That 4.8 million were just called back to jobs they had been laid off from a few months ago.
Here are the official statistics for June:
SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORKFORCE:
159,932,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
17,750,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
11.1%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:
Adult men...............10.2%
Adult women...............11.2%
Teens (16-19)...............23.2%
Whites...............10.1%
Blacks...............15.4%
Asians...............13.8%
Hispanics...............14.5%
Less than HS diploma...............16.6%
HS graduate...............12.1%
Some college...............10.9%
Bachelor's degree or more...............6.9%
