Jobless Rate Edges Up During July : Another 170,000 Unemployed, Most of Them Teen-Agers

The nation’s unemployment rate edged up 0.1 percentage point to 5.4% in July as the number of jobless Americans climbed 170,000, most of them teen-agers, the government said today.

(The unemployment rate in California, where the demand for labor is high, dropped a full percentage point in July to 5.4%, down from 5.6% in June, the Labor Department said.)

The department’s monthly survey of households nationwide showed only 41,000 more people at work last month, in contrast to an employment gain of 823,000 in June, when out-of-school teen-agers flooded the job market.

Mostly Stable

The unemployment rate for most segments of the population was unchanged last month. Teen-age joblessness, however, rose 1.6 percentage points to 15.2%.

Teen-agers accounted for 144,000 of the 170,000 rise in unemployment.

A separate survey of business payrolls showed a much healthier labor market, with the creation of 285,000 jobs in July--150,000 of them in retail trade and manufacturing.

Factory employment climbed by 70,000 to 19.6 million. That is 200,000 more assembly line jobs than existed three months ago, and 540,000 more than in July, 1987.

The commissioner of labor statistics, Janet L. Norwood, said the July factory payroll growth “would have been even greater were it not for the absence from payrolls of about 15,000 workers in the shipbuilding and lumber industries who went on strike.”

Rise in Retail Work

Employment in retail trade jumped by 80,000, matching June’s strong growth. In the rapidly expanding business and health-care service industries, however, job growth slowed to 65,000, about half what it had been in recent months.

Economists are increasingly relying on the business payroll information rather than on the household survey--from which the jobless rate is calculated--as a better indicator of the health of the economy.

Over the last year, employment growth has averaged 200,000 a month in the household survey, but 325,000 a month in the payroll report.

“One reason for the more rapid employment growth in the business survey may be a possible increase in multiple job holding, which often occurs when the demand for labor is very strong,” Norwood said.

Job Movement Noted

The payroll survey counts each job a person holds, while the household survey counts only the number of employed respondents.

Norwood said it is also possible that some workers are moving more rapidly from one job to another because of tight labor markets in some areas of the country.

Unemployment rates for various segments of the population were:

--For men, 5.1%, unchanged.

--For women, 5.7%, up from 5.4%.

--For whites, 4.7%, up from 4.5%.

--For blacks, 11.4%, down from 11.5%.

--For Latinos, 8%, down from 9%.

The Labor Department said average hourly wages last month jumped 0.4%, from $9.28 to $9.32, after holding flat in June.

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