It's Off to Work We Go

HELP WANTED. Those welcome words continue to blossom around the U.S. at a pace so fast that even optimistic forecasters are stunned. Most economists expected the jobless rate to fall to about 7% by next year. But what they cautiously predicted has already come to pass. Last week the Labor Department announced that civilian unemployment fell from 7.5% in May to 7.1% in June, its lowest level in more than four years. Since November 1982, when unemployment hit a postwar peak of 10.7%, the brisk economic recovery has created at least 6.5 million jobs. A record 105.7 million Americans are working. One of the best gains in June was for black workers, whose jobless rate dipped to 15% from 15.8%. For black teenagers, the rate fell to 34% from 44%. Among the sectors of the economy offering the most new jobs were construction and manufacturing.

The steepness of the decline in unemployment is causing some economists to fear that the recovery is moving too fast. An overheated economy, fueled in part by the huge federal budget deficit, could continue pushing interest rates upward and possibly reignite inflation. That might stall the American job machine as early as 1985. For the moment, though, the economy is humming along. Last month some 460,000 people went back to work. For them, punching a time clock never felt so good.