Moderately Strong Employment Growth

The Employment Situation report for July 2005 has several pieces of good news. Payroll employment rose by 207,000. The increase in employment as measured by the household survey was enough to have the employment to population ratio rise to 62.8% from 62.7%. The unemployment rate did not change as the labor force participation rate rose from 66.0% to 66.1%. In short, the weak labor market is slowly improving.