Almost one in ten Americans of working age will be marking the Fourth of July celebrations jobless.

The non-farm payrolls data, published yesterday, were not only worse than expected. They also ruined what had looked to be an improving trend in suggesting that the US economic recovery, which some had hoped would take hold in this quarter, remains distant.

Optimists will point out that the average monthly rise in joblessness during the second quarter of the year was lower than that in the first quarter and that the June rise in the unemployment rate was actually the lowest this year.

But the fact remains that the US jobless rate has now doubled in just 16 months and, were the US labour force not shrinking, it would certainly now stand at more than the present 9.5 per cent. Shockingly, among US teenagers, the jobless rate now stands at 24 per cent.

On that basis, it would be no surprise if a few firework displays this Fourth of July took place along less than traditional lines.

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