Unemployment Rate Down to 5.3% – A 7 Year Low

Newly released reports state that the labor market added 223,000 jobs last month, making this the lowest the unemployment rate has been in 7 years.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent, the lowest mark in seven years, but the decline reflected a wave of Americans who either retired or abandoned their job hunts.

The latest jobs data from the Department of Labor comes amid a spike in global economic volatility, the result of high-wire negotiations between a near-bankrupt Greece and its European creditors. Though the United States faces little risk from the chaos across the Atlantic, its own economy is fighting through a soft spot after an encouraging period of growth in 2014.

Thursday’s numbers point “to an economic recovery that is good, but not good enough,” Bill Spriggs, a chief economist at the AFL-CIO, wrote in an e-mail.