According to an AP article by Jeannine Aversa, one of the reasons for
the decrease in he unemployment rate was that hundreds of thousands of
people left the labor force. Fewer people, though, did report being
unemployed. In total, there were 14.5 million out of work in July.
Additionally,
adjusted May and June job loss numbers were actually better than
originally reported. The May total was cut from 322,000 to 303,000 and
June was modified from 467,000 to 443,000, making the contrast to the
July total of 247,000 all the more significant.
January was the
worst month for job losses since 1949, with job losses totaling
741,000. It is estimated that the economy has lost a net total of 6.7
million jobs.