Welcome to the Obama recovery. Employers shed 131,000 jobs during the month of July, while the number of jobs created during the month of June was revised downward.

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.

That private sector payroll gain isn’t particularly bad news, but the gain is nowhere near the number required to lower the unemployment rate. In fact, Reuters says the growth was less than expected. Add on the fact that the federal government still has hundreds of thousands of Census workers to lay off before the end of the year. You’re not looking at promising employment data.

Some more figures for July:

• Unemployment rate remained at 9.5%
• 14.6 million members of the workforce remain unemployed
• Long-term unemployed (27+ weeks) remained basically unchanged at 6.6 million

As for June:

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised from +433,000 to +432,000, and the change for June was revised from -125,000 to -221,000.

So we also created 97,000 fewer jobs between May and June than previously thought.

To paraphrase President Reagan: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Democrats lose theirs.

“Recovery Summer” is a bust, as expected. Hopefully “Recovery November” will be far more successful.