Nonfarm payroll employment fell 125,000 in June and the unemployment rate slipped to 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.  The decline reflects a 225,000 decrease in the number of temporary workers hired for the 2010 Census.

This graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971. (Source: www.calculatedriskblog.com)

The good news in the labor market is wearing thin. Numbers for initial jobless claims, released by the Labor Dept. yesterday morning, rose for the second week in a row, this time by 24,000 to 484,000.

The Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Joint Economic Committee hearing on Wednesday. (AP Photo)

The economy is recovering, just not robustly enough to fuel fast job growth.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/ / CC BY 2.0

BY KELLEN M. HENRY– MEDILL REPORTS

The unemployment see-saw continues amid uncertainty about when Americans will head back to work, a U.S. Department of Labor report indicated Thursday.

Last week, the number of people filing for unemployment claims rose, while the total number of people filing ongoing [...]

Unemployment self-portrait by Diego Cupolo/Flickr.com

BY KATIE ROGERS – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

On the heels of Tuesday reports indicating green shoots in the Chicago area housing market, and the Fed’s Beige Book Wednesday suggesting a slightly more optimistic economic outlook, The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a bleaker [...]

BY JORDAN MELNICK–MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

PIMCO’s managing director Bill Gross, called the nation’s most prominent bond investor, made a grim forecast for the U.S. economy Wednesday. In “Investment Potions” he says that nominal GDP is on track to stabilize at 3 [...]

The Fed predicts unemployment will stay above 8 percent through 2011

BY JORDAN MELNICK — MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Here’s a variation on an old favorite: If an economy climbs out of recession and nobody gets a job, does it make a difference? This spin of Berkeley’s enigmatic query arises from the Fed’s [...]

(BWR/FLICKR)

BY DEB WEINSTEIN – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The future isn’t quite here, but Mesirow Financial’s Chief Economist and Senior Managing Director Diane C. Swonk says what it will look like is coming into focus. In [...]

Do you know what a "zombie bank" is? Do you care? (Laughing Squid/FLICKR)

BY KATE SHELLNUTT – MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Not only do we have to deal with the bad economy, we also have to listen to the (silly) contemporary catchphrases the recession brings.

Bloggers more savvy than I have been all over hybrid words [...]

The nation has been under a pressure of the highest unemployment rate since late 1983. (http://philsbackupsite.wordpress.com/)

BY MING ZHUANG - MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

With the deepening economic downturn, more non-U.S. citizen job hunters feel stressed out about finding a position with a valid status, which would allow them to remain in the U.S. legally.

According [...]