Long-term Unemployment Plummets

The jobs numbers for the month of June came in stronger than expected, with 288,000 added. As a result, the unemployment rate has dropped to 6.1 percent, which is the lowest since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Economists had expected a gain of between 200,000 to 250,000. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job gains were across the board in professional and business services, retail, health care, and food services. So far in 2014, the number of unemployed persons has declined by 1.4 percentage points, or 2.3 million people. The number of long-term unemployed also dropped by 293,000 to 3.1 million.