WASHINGTON - Nonfarm payrolls fell by 131,000 in July and private nonfarm payrolls increased by 71,000 as the federal government continued to shed Census workers, the Labor Department reported today. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5%.
Payrolls for federal government Census workers fell by 143,000 and total government employment fell by 202,000 for the month.
Private-sector payrolls in June and May added 82,000 jobs, down from 116,000 reported last month. Total payrolls for the two months were revised lower to 211,000 from 308,000. Through the first seven months of 2010, the private sector has added 630,000 jobs.
Economists expected total payrolls to decrease by 63,000 and for the unemployment rate to increase to 9.6%, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
The construction sector added 36,000 jobs following a 13,000 gain in June. The goods-producing sector added 33,000 jobs, the strongest gain since April.
The professional and business services sector lost 13,000 jobs, the first decline for the category in 10 months. State and local government employment fell by 48,000.
Average hourly earnings for all employees increased 0.2% in July and 0.1% for production and nonsupervisory employees. The average workweek for all employees increased by 0.1- hour to 34.2 hours.
Economists forecast the average hourly earnings would increase 0.1% and the workweek for all employees would remain 34.1 hours.
The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees increased to 33.5 hours.
