Memorandum Following Release of the Labor Department's Employment Figures for June.

Memorandum from the President for Cabinet Officers and Agency Heads:

A new job can mean

--The launching of a young person's career;

--Another lease on economic life for someone dropped by a shrinking industry or an outmoded occupation;

--A bright horizon for a housewife who has brought up her children; and

--A ticket to join the steady movement from farm to city.

Jobs are our economy's most important product, and I want you to know where our job record stands at mid-year.

The news is good. Although it is not good enough and although unemployment remains too high for many groups and many areas, we are moving forward toward our ultimate aim of job opportunities for everyone willing and able to work.

New figures for June released by the Labor Department this afternoon show that, in the first half of 1965, we added 1.1 million jobs to non-farm payrolls. This is even a substantially better gain than we made in the first half of 1964.

Employment in manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, service industries, and state and local governments all increased substantially, while the Federal government was not adding to the number of its employees.

And these most recent figures show that the pace is being maintained, with a 210,000 increase in payroll jobs during June.

For the second quarter of this year, the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent of the civilian labor force, the lowest since the third quarter of 1957. Nearly all groups in our labor force have shared the improvement since unemployment began a steady decline from the 5.6 percent rate of the last quarter of 1963. But the unemployment rate for teenagers remains near 15 percent because of the rapid growth of teenagers in the labor force. And though it has shown encouraging improvement in the past year, the rate for Negro workers remains far too high at 8 percent.

These are problems we must face and solve. I know I can count on all of you to work to improve our record. I know that we will be working to promote and extend the prosperity of 53 months that has added 5 1/2 million jobs for Americans. I know that we must and we can develop and carry out programs to make more efficient and more humane use of our precious manpower resources.

And I know that we will work in full cooperation with business and labor, because full employment opportunity is a task and a goal for the whole nation.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON