Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/12/2010 -- The government’s broader measure of unemployment has decreased only by 0.1 point to 16.5% this June, according to newly released data from the Labor Department.

This definition of unemployment takes into account people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. The figure went up in June because of an increase in the number of discouraged workers, who are only marginally attached to the labor force. There are a total of 1.2 million discouraged workers. The number of long-term unemployed (unemployed for 27 weeks and more) was 6.8 million which accounted for 45.5% of total unemployed.

Most of the news articles carrying stories of the long term unemployed talk about how tough it is for these individuals to find work. The reasons listed are their lack of relevant skills, age discrimination and employers preferring to hire people currently employed. On this, CEO of Hound, A. Harrison Barnes, says that news on the jobs front is not as bleak as the media reports it to be. “Job losses in entire regions are a reality, but then there are plenty of places where thousands of jobs are available. Just this past week we have been able to compile almost 100,000 jobs.”

The main states where jobs seem to be available in large numbers are: Illinois (18,652), Massachusetts (15,410), North Carolina (11,811), Pennsylvania (17,873), California (52,736), and Washington (12,231).