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 

Keith Hall 

Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

before the 

Joint Economic Committee 

UNITED STATES CONGRESS 

Friday, July 2, 2010

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and 

unemployment data we released this morning. 

Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 125,000 in June, and the 

unemployment rate edged down to 9.5 percent. The decline in 

employment reflects a large drop in the number of temporary 

workers for Census 2010. The number of jobs in the private 

sector edged up (+83,000), due to modest increases in several 

industries. Private sector employment has risen by 593,000 so 

far in 2010, but in June was 7.9 million below its prerecession

level. 
2 

Over the month, federal government employment declined 

sharply. The number of temporary Census 2010 workers dropped by 

225,000, leaving 339,000 temporary workers on the Census 

payroll. 

In the private sector, temporary help services employment 

continued to grow over the month (+21,000). The industry has 

added 379,000 jobs since September 2009. Employment also rose 

in management and technical consulting (+11,000) and in business 

support services (+7,000) in June. Amusements, gambling, and 

recreation gained 28,000 jobs, while transportation and 

warehousing employment was up by 15,000.

Mining employment continued to trend up (+6,000), and the 

industry has gained 56,000 jobs since October 2009. Employment 

in manufacturing also continued to trend up in June (+9,000). 

The industry has added 136,000 jobs so far this year. The 

manufacturing workweek declined by half an hour in June, more 

than offsetting an increase in May. Nonetheless, factory hours 

remained 1.3 hours above their recent trough. Employment in 

health care edged up in June (+9,000). 

Construction employment fell by 22,000; specialty trade 

contractors accounted for most of the decline. On net, 

construction employment has shown little change over the last 4 

months. 
3 

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm 

payrolls decreased by 2 cents in June to $22.53. Over the past 

12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.7 

percent. From May 2009 to May 2010, the Consumer Price Index 

for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose by 2.0 percent. 

Turning to measures from the survey of households, the 

unemployment rate edged down by 0.2 percentage point to 9.5 

percent in June. Of the 14.6 million unemployed individuals, 

about 6.8 million had been jobless for 27 weeks or more. In 

comparison, 1.3 million persons were unemployed for 27 weeks or 

longer when the recession began. 

The labor force declined in June (-652,000). Following 

increases earlier in the year, the labor force participation 

rate has declined by half a percentage point over the last 2 

months. 

The employment-population ratio edged down to 58.5 percent 

in June. Among the employed, there were 8.6 million individuals 

working part time who preferred full-time work. The number of 

such workers has fallen by 525,000 over the past 2 months. 

In summary, payroll employment fell by 125,000 in June, as 

modest growth in the private sector (+83,000) was more than 

offset by a large decline in temporary census workers 

(-225,000). The unemployment rate edged down to 9.5 percent. 
4 

My colleagues and I now would be glad to answer your 

questions.