In this July 13, 2011 photo, attendees stand in lines that weave throughout a room filled with recruiting booths during a National Career Fairs job fair, in Dallas. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits dipped last week, a sign the job market may be improving slowly.(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)WASHINGTON - Hiring picked up slightly in July and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.1 percent, an optimistic sign after the worst day on Wall Street in nearly three years.
The Labor Department says employers added 117,000 jobs last month. That's an improvement from the past two months.
The mild gain may ease investors' concerns after the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 500 points over concerns that the U.S. may be entering another recession.
Still, the economy needs twice as many net jobs per month to rapidly reduce unemployment. The rate has topped 9 percent in every month except two since the recession officially ended in June 2009.
The unemployment rate fell partly because some unemployed workers stopped looking for work. That means they are no longer counted as unemployed.