In the government report released Friday, the economy lost 54,000 jobs in August, less than was previously forecast. In the private sector, companies added 67,000 jobs in August, up from the 41,000 that were forecast. Growth in the private sector was also revised to 107,000 jobs in July and 61,000 jobs in June. 114,000 temporary Census workers were let go, and an additional 10,000 jobs were cut at the state level. Economists say that the economy is slowly recovering, but that they expect it to be prolonged. The health care industry added 28,000 jobs in August, and construction grew by 19,000, though some of those jobs were attributed to strikes ending. The unemployment rate rose to 9.6%, and the overall number of unemployed people rose to 14.86 million.
See "U.S. Lost Jobs in August, but Fewer Than Expected", Christine Hauser, The New York Times, September 2, 2010