The American economy continued its slowly but surely upward slope from the depths of the Great Recession by adding 163,000 jobs in July, the Department of Labor said on Friday. The number is in comparison to June’s 64,000 jobs. The economy is now producing as more goods and services than it did before the downturn officially began in December 2007, albeit it does so with almost five million fewer jobs.
The pace at which the economy has been adding jobs in the last few months is barely fast enough to absorb the growth of the American labor force. As a result, the unemployment rate rose from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent. “This is the weakest recovery we’ve ever seen, weaker even that the recovery during the Great Depression,” said Credit Suisse chief economist Neal Soss.
