Unemployment rates were once again up as the rate gain 0.3% after a decline in July. August figures show the unemployment rate at 9.7% with many companies still reluctant about hiring personnel and companies are still looking to save in defense of this still ongoing recession. This figure rose even though the actual loss of jobs was slightly less than what was expected. Tig Gilliam, CEO of Adecco Group North America, says that “When you’re losing 200,000 jobs a month, the unemployment rate can’t help to go up unless you have a lot of people just giving up.” Analysts say this was one of the main reasons for last month’s drop in the unemployment rate, people just giving up in looking for another job instead of witnessing an increase in company hiring.

This rise in unemployment rate was also attributed to students not finding summer jobs in this economic climate. Bernard Baumohl, chief economist for the Economic Outlook Group, says that he was less concerned with the hike in these numbers because the summer vacation tends to play a lot of havoc with regards to these numbers.
Gilliams also added that despite this rise in the unemployment rate, he is still very much encouraged by the fact that job losses among temporary workers fell from 7,900 the past month to 6,500 in August.

Though he predicts modest job gains ahead, Gilliams is positive that the economy will see more hiring and clients filling openings in a few months’ time. The report released likewise showed that the underemployment rate was also up. There were as many as 9.1 million workers who have been limited to working part time as permanent positions have been scarce and hard to come by. This number has been down for the past two months making analysts hope that though employers had been cutting a lot of jobs and staff hours, they were at least bringing people back on full time positions.

The recovery from this recession is also made more difficult by the fact that even people with permanent jobs are reluctant in spending their money, opting to save it instead. These projections about unemployment are expected to remain high in the months to come.