TOEFL Reading No. 1

ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION EXAMINATION

Form H

IV. Read the following newspapar article and answer the questions.

Washington (Washington Star)-- The

unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in July,

almost unchanged from June, as the decline in

employment of the last four months apparently

"leveled off", the Labor Department reported

Friday.

The 7.8-percent rate, following the 7.7

percent in June and the 7.8 percent in May,

gives three months of fairly level un-

employment after the unemployment rate jumped

from 6.2 percent to 7.8 percent between March

and May.

Unemployment for adult males, at 6.7

percent, and adult women also at 6.7 percent,

were essentially unchanged. Unemployment for

blacks rose to 14.2 percent, up from 13.6

percent.

The economic signals in the figures were

mixed, and Janet Norwood, the commissioner of

the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said it was

too early to suggest any new trend.  Many

economists have been predicting that the

unemployment rate will rise to near 9 percent

by the end of the year.

Total employment was up 460,000, after four

months of sharp declines. But since February

total employment is still down by about

950,000. At the same time, the labor force--

the total of all the employed and unemployed

--rose 650,000 in July, which is why the rate

of unemployment rose slightly.

But payroll employment, which excludes farm

workers and is measured in a separate survey,

fell 240,000 in July. The Labor Department

said this drop was attributable to major

strikes in the mining and construction

industries, which have idled about 150,000

workers. However, in the payroll survey,

these workers are counted as not working

but as still employed in the total employment

survey.

In addition, the federal government is

laying off about 90,000 workers who had been

hired to do the 1980 census, the department

said, and this added to the payroll

employment drop.

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