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September, 1987, Vol. 110, No.
9
Strong employment growth
highlights first half of 1987
Employment rose markedly during the first half of 1987. The number of unemployed workers dropped by 700,000 to 7.4 million, and the civilian unemployment rate fell more than half a point to 6.2 percent.1 This brought the rate to its lowest level since the first quarter of 1980.
The employment gains in the first half continued to be concentrated in the service-producing sector. In the goods-producing sector, there was an overall increase in construction and manufacturing jobs, and employment in mining began to show a recovery from recent job losses.2
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1 Unless otherwise noted, changes in the first half of 1987 refer to movements in seasonally adjusted data from the fourth quarter of 1986 through the second quarter of 1987.
2 Data in this article are from two sources: the Current Population Survey (CPS), and the Current Employment Statistics survey (CES). The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households and provides information on the labor force, employment, and unemployment by demographic and economic characteristics. The CES survey is a monthly survey of approximately 290,000 nonagricultural establishments and provides information by detailed industry on the number of employees on business payrolls, as well as on average hours and earnings.
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