Unemployment high, but 117,000 jobs added

The U.S. employment market turned in a better-than-expected performance by adding 117,000 jobs in July, according to data released Friday.

The unemployment rate remained high, dipping to 9.1 percent from 9.2 percent in June.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected 85,000 new jobs. Steep declines in the stock market this week and a report showing diminished consumer spending weighed heavily on expectations for the job market. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of all U.S. economic activity.

Despite the gains, job growth remains weak and is expected to continue to be subpar because of slowed consumer activity.

"There is no real engine to push the economy forward," said Gad Levanon, associate director of macroeconomic research at The Conference Board, a Manhattan-based business-research group. "Consumer spending and housing are not expanding rapidly."

He expects more weak growth in the near term. He said that government spending, especially at the state and local level, is "declining rapidly." And he noted that a bellwether of the job market's future strength, the temporary-services industry, added just 300 jobs in June after two months of declines.

The United States also remains mired in some troubling statistics. It has at least 13.9 million unemployed workers, and 6.2 million of that number, or 44 percent, have been jobless for 27 weeks or more. To lower the unemployment rate significantly, the United States needs to create at least 150,000 jobs a month for a sustained period, Levanon said.

Long Island, which had fared better than the nation in the recovery, started bleeding jobs again in May and June after 11 straight months of increases. As reported, the Island had 6,800 fewer jobs in June than it had the year before. Its 7.1 unemployment rate, though, is still considerably below the nation's.

Nationally, the education and health-services category, which includes private schools but not public ones, added 38,000 jobs, the most of any category. Most of the gains were in health care. The government sector led declines with a loss of 37,000 jobs, mostly because of the shutdown in Minnesota.

Despite the grim job market, some long-term unemployed workers are finding jobs.

Oceanside resident Ken Jacoby, 44, started work in April at the Alcott HR Group, a Farmingdale human-resources services firm, after being out of work since March 2009. He will manage 401(k) plans, as he had done in the job he lost.

Before Alcott, he had sent out more than 1,000 resumes. His situation was so desperate that his 93 weeks of extended unemployment benefits expired in January and he and his family turned to community groups for help with food, clothing and school supplies.

But then a friend who was leaving Alcott encouraged him to apply. "I attribute my new position to a long time of networking and beating the bushes and never burning bridges," he said.