Here is the lead paragraph from the BLS news release:

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.

The monthly unemployment rate is 9.5% — unchanged from June. The peak for the current cycle was 10.2% in October 2009. The chart here shows the pattern of unemployment, recessions and both the nominal and real (inflation-adjusted) price of the S&P Composite since 1948.

Unemployment is usually a lagging indicator that moves inversely with equity prices (top chart). Note the increasing peaks in unemployment in 1971, 1975 and 1982. The inverse pattern becomes clearer when viewed against real (inflation-adjusted) S&P Composite, with its successively lower bear market bottoms. The mirror relationship seems to be repeating itself with the current and previous bear markets.

The second chart shows the unemployment rate for the civilian population unemployed 27 weeks and over. The July number is 4.3% — down slightly from 4.4% in June. This measure gives an alternate perspective on the relative severity of economic conditions. As we readily see, this metric is significantly higher than the peak in 1983, which came six months after the broader measure topped out at 10.8%.

I now show the latest recession as having ended in June 2009, following the lead of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The "official" end will be a rear-view mirror call by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

The third chart is one of my favorites from CalculatedRisk. It shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms compared to all recessions since 1948. Note the addition of the dotted-line alternative for the current cycle, which shows unemployment excluding the temporary census hiring.

Here is a link to the Employment Situation Summary released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The start date of 1948 was determined by the earliest monthly unemployment figures collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The best source for the historic data is the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.