Statement by the President on the Employment Record for July.

EARLIER today the Department of Labor announced the employment and unemployment figures for July. I am extremely pleased that they showed an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, the lowest rate since October 1957. We can all be gratified that fewer and fewer Americans have had to suffer unemployment in this past year, despite an extraordinarily rapid growth of the labor force.

From July 1964 to July 1965 the civilian labor force grew by 2.2 million people. This growth is

--more than twice as great as the 1 million increase in the preceding 12 months; and

--over 2 1/2 times as large as the average yearly increase in the labor force from 1947 to 1964.

It is gratifying that employment opportunities grew even faster in the past year. Civilian employment rose by 2.4 million

--the largest year-to-year gain since the American economy was climbing out of the 1958 recession,

--more new jobs created in a single year than the total employment in a country such as Finland, or a great State like Massachusetts.

Teenagers and the long-term unemployed were special beneficiaries of expanding employment opportunities.

--Teenage employment in July was nearly 1 million higher than a year earlier, keeping pace with the large increase in the teenage labor force.

--Long-term unemployment (15 weeks or more) fell below 600,000, the lowest level in 7 1/2 years. Most of the 270,000 decline from a year earlier occurred among persons out of work for 6 months or more.

These encouraging developments give us confidence and determination to seek further reductions in our national unemployment rate. Unemployment is still far too high among teenagers (13.2 percent) and among nonwhites (9.1 percent); this unnecessary waste of our manpower resources must be cut. Business, labor, and Government have worked together to create jobs and to strengthen our prosperity in the past year; we will continue to cooperate to widen employment opportunities in the months ahead.