US jobless falls to its lowest this year

WASHINGTON -Employment fell in June for the first time this year, reflecting a drop in federal census workers as the decennial population count began to wind down, economists said before a report this week.

Payrolls declined by 110,000 last month, according to the median estimate of 51 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of a Labor Department report July 2. Private employment, which excludes government jobs, rose for a sixth consecutive month, the survey showed.

The pace of hiring indicates it will take years for the world's largest economy to recover the more than 8 million jobs lost during the recession that began in December 2007.