Decrease in Teen Job-Seekers Drops Unemployment to 6.1% : Lowest Rate of ‘80s Despite Creation of Few New Jobs

WASHINGTON — Fewer teen-agers seeking jobs this summer dropped the nation’s unemployment rate in June to 6.1%, the lowest point in the 1980s, despite a paltry increase of only 116,000 new jobs during the month, the government reported today.

The jobless rate had stood at 6.3% in April and May.

Total employment actually fell by 198,000 last month, the Labor Department said, but the losses were more than offset by a seasonally adjusted decline of nearly 500,000 in the labor force.

The drop in the labor force--all those at work or actively seeking a job--had been expected after a May gain of 612,000, which analysts had said was “probably somewhat exaggerated.”

The number of people listed as officially unemployed also fell last month, down 286,000 to 7.26 million, the lowest since March, 1980.

Lowest Since 1979

Over the last 12 months, the overall unemployment rate has dropped a full percentage point, from 7.1% to 6.1%.

The jobless rate has not been so low since December, 1979, in the Carter Administration, when it was 6%.

The department attributed virtually all of June’s 0.2 percentage point drop to the relatively low number of teen-agers entering the job market at the end of the school year.

Teen-agers accounted for more than two-thirds of the 484,000 drop in the labor force, and their jobless rate fell almost 2 percentage points, to 15.9% from 17.7%.

Unemployment among black teen-agers and women fell to the lowest levels since 1974.

For black teens, the rate dropped 5.7 percentage points to 33.3%. For women, the rate was off 0.2 percentage point to 5.2%.

Among men, the rate was unchanged at 5.5%, still well below the 6% that prevailed at the end of 1986.

‘Far Less Volatile’

“The labor market experience of adult men during the summer months is far less volatile than for youngsters,” Janet L. Norwood, commissioner of labor statistics, told the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

In contrast, she said, the rate can be quite explosive for those aged 16 to 24. “From April to June, the labor force for this group has risen about 2.6 million before seasonal adjustment--considerably less than last year,” she said in explaining the large teen-age jobless drop.

Norwood said employment growth in the service sectors of the economy over the last two months has slowed to just half the rate recorded earlier in the year.