The Labor Department released its unemployment numbers for August on Friday. It showed the economy had created a healthy 315,000 new jobs. The number of workers in the civilian work force increased by about 786,000 workers, and that caused the unemployment rate to rise by 0.2% to 3.7% for the month. It marks the seventh month in a row that the unemployment rate was below 4.0%.
Here are the relevant numbers for August:
CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:
164,746,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
6,014,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
3.7%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:
Adult men...............3.5%
Adult women...............3.3%
Teens (16-19)...............10.4%
Whites...............3.2%
Blacks...............6.4%
Asians...............2.8%
Hispanics...............4.5%
Les than HS diploma...............6.2%
HS graduate...............4.2%
Some college...............2.9%
Bachelor's deg. or more............... 1.9%
NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (unemployed but not counted):
1,434,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED (official + marginally-attached):
7,448,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
4.5%
