The number of employed Americans hit a record high of 153,513,000 in July, according to the latest numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There were 345,000 more Americans who gained employment over the month, and more individuals joined the labor force as well.
There were 349,000 more Americans who joined the labor force in July, while 156,000 fewer left. From June to July, the number of those in the labor force grew from 160,145,000 to 160,494,000, another record high.
The number of Americans not participating in the labor force declined from 94,813,000 in June to 94,657,000 in July. The bureau counts those not in the labor force as people who do not have a job and did not actively seek one in the past four weeks.
The labor force participation rate, which is the percentage of the population that has a job or actively looked for one in the past month, increased slightly from 62.8 percent in June to 62.9 percent in July.
Although more Americans joined the labor force and found jobs in the month of June, the number of unemployed also increased. In June, there were 6,977,000 who were unemployed and in July that number grew to 6,981,000.
The unemployment rate for all Americans declined from 4.4 percent in June to 4.3 percent in July, which is the lowest level seen in 16 years.
This measure does not account for those individuals who have dropped out of the labor force—it simply measures the percent of those who did not have a job but actively sought one over the month.
The "real" unemployment rate, otherwise known as the U-6 measure, remained the same from the previous month at 8.6 percent.
There were 5,282,000 Americans working part-time in July who would rather have a full-time job but cited economic reasons for not having such employment. This number declined by 44,000 over the month.
According to the bureau, involuntary part-time workers are "persons who indicated that they would like to work full time but were working part time (1 to 34 hours) because of an economic reason, such as their hours were cut back or they were unable to find full-time jobs."
Finally, it was projected that 183,000 jobs would be created over the month. The jobs report exceeded expectations as 209,000 jobs were created in July.