July 10, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rates in June

Both the number of unemployed persons, 5.6 million, and the unemployment rate, 4.0 percent, were little changed in June (seasonally adjusted). The jobless rate has been in a 3.9- to 4.1-percent range since October 1999.

[Chart data—TXT]

Unemployment rates for the major worker groups—adult men (3.2 percent), adult women (3.8 percent), teenagers (11.6 percent), whites (3.4 percent), blacks (7.9 percent), and Hispanics (5.6 percent)—showed little or no change over the month.

About 1.1 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in June. These people wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they had not actively searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

These data are a product of the Current Population Survey. Find out more in "The Employment Situation: June 2000," news release USDL 00-194.