国际英语新闻：U.S. labor market shows modest improvement in first half of 2010: Fed

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. labor market has shown modest improvement in the first half of 2010, but the pace of hiring to date has not been sufficient to bring about a significant reduction in the unemployment rate, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.

"On average, private-sector employment rose 100,000 per month over the first half of 2010, with increases across a wide range of industries," the Fed said in its semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress. "Businesses also raised their labor input by increasing hours per worker."

But the report emphasized that the rise in payrolls is still sluggish, leaving jobless rate unacceptably high.

The unemployment rate averaged 9.75 percent in the second quarter, only slightly below its recession high of 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, the report noted, adding that long- term unemployment has continued to worsen.