Advance copies of this statement are made available to the 

press under lock-up conditions with the explicit 

understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. 

Eastern Daylight Time.

Statement of

Kathleen P. Utgoff

Commissioner

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Friday, August 6, 2004

The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 

percent in July, and nonfarm payroll employment was little 

changed (+32,000). Since August 2003, nonfarm payroll 

employment has risen by 1.5 million; about three-fifths of 

this growth occurred during March, April, and May of this 

year. In July, employment gains in health care and social 

assistance and in professional and business services were 

partly offset by a decline in finance and insurance. 

Health care and social assistance added 20,000 jobs in 

July; employment in the industry has risen by 292,000 over 

the year. Over the month, job growth continued in 

ambulatory health care services, hospitals, and child day 

care services.
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Employment continued to trend up in professional and 

business services (+42,000) in July. This sector has added 

622,000 jobs since its most recent low in March 2003. 

Employment in temporary help, which provides workers to 

other industries, has changed little since May. Temporary 

help employment had increased by 293,000 from April 2003 

through May 2004.

Employment in finance and insurance decreased by 

25,000 in July, with the largest job loss (-16,000) in 

credit intermediation. The decline in credit 

intermediation, an industry that includes mortgage 

brokerages, largely offset the employment gain of 21,000 

during the first half of 2004. Security and commodity 

brokerages also shed jobs over the month.

In the goods-producing sector, manufacturing 

employment edged up in July (+10,000), after showing no 

movement in June (-1,000, as revised). The sector has 

added 91,000 jobs since January, with virtually all of the 

gain in durable goods manufacturing. Over the month, 

employment grew in machinery, computer and electronic

products, and furniture. Employment in transportation 

equipment fell in July (-21,000), due to larger-than-usual 

shutdowns in auto and parts plants for annual retooling. 
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The factory workweek edged up by 0.1 hour to 40.9 hours and 

factory overtime, at 4.6 hours, was unchanged.

Mining employment continued to trend up in July. 

Since April 2003, the industry has added 29,000 jobs. In 

July, construction employment was flat for the second month 

in a row, after adding an average of 18,000 jobs per month 

from March 2003 through May 2004.

Average hourly earnings for private production or 

nonsupervisory workers rose by 5 cents over the month, 

following a 2-cent increase in June. Over the year, 

average hourly earnings grew by 1.9 percent.

Turning now to information from our survey of 

households, the unemployment rate and the number of 

unemployed persons were essentially unchanged in July, at 

5.5 percent and 8.2 million, respectively. After declining 

during the second half of 2003, the jobless rate has shown 

little movement since December. The labor force 

participation rate rose in July to 66.2 percent. 

The trend in employment growth depicted by our 

household and establishment surveys had been roughly 

similar for over a year but the employment series from the 

two surveys showed a large divergence in July. As measured 

by the household survey, employment rose by 629,000 over 

the month, compared with a change of 32,000, as measured by 
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the establishment survey. Even after adjusting household 

survey employment to make it conceptually similar to the 

establishment survey measure, household survey employment 

increased by 434,000 in July. 

The estimate of over-the-month change in employment 

from the establishment survey is less volatile than that 

from the household survey for a variety of reasons. The 

establishment survey has a much larger sample. Moreover,

the household survey is not designed to optimize the 

measurement of month-to-month employment change, but rather 

to optimize the accuracy of the unemployment 

rate--something that cannot be measured from the 

establishment survey. 

To put this month’s change in household survey 

employment in context, there have been 14 other months over 

the past 10 years when the over-the-month change was nearly 

600,000 or more. (This figure is based on data as 

originally published, and omits months when there were 

breaks in data comparability.) In contrast, the payroll 

survey registered only one over-the-month change greater 

than 500,000 during the same time period, and that movement 

was due to an unusual weather event in the prior month

(again using data as originally published.) Not 

surprisingly, unusually large over-the-month movements in 
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household survey employment often result in substantial 

discrepancies between the two surveys’ measures of 

employment change in those months. 

In recent years, BLS has studied the differences in 

employment trends as measured by our household and 

establishment surveys. This information is summarized on 

our website at http://www.bls.gov/cps/ces_cps_trends.pdf. 

We will continue our research and issue additional findings 

as appropriate. As always, we recommend that users avoid 

focusing too much on any single month’s estimates when 

examining labor market developments. 

In summary, the unemployment rate was essentially 

unchanged in July, at 5.5 percent, although it was down 

substantially from a year earlier. Nonfarm payroll 

employment was little changed at 131.3 million in July and 

has risen by 1.5 million since August 2003.