From [HERE] Economic analysts anticipated that the Department of Labor would report a seventh consecutive month of solid job gains. They were wrong. According to figures released Friday, African-American employment held at 11.4 percent, while the national unemployment rate fell slightly from 6.2 percent to 6.1 percent.

The economy added a disappointing 142,000 jobs in August, the lowest number this year. ADP in its monthly report on employment trends predicted that the economy added 204,000 new jobs down from the 209,000 in July and significantly lower than the 288,000 jobs added in June.

Jason Furman, who chairs the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged that the jobs report could have been better but argued that overall the economy is still moving in the right direction.

"To continue to support the progress our economy has made, the president will act wherever he can to create good jobs [for who?], facilitate investments in American infrastructure and manufacturing, and make sure that hard work pays off with higher wages," he said, noting that "long-term unemployment has fallen rapidly over the past year but remains well above its pre-recession average."

About 10.6 percent of adult African-American women age 20 or older are unemployed, unchanged from a year ago, according to Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department.

Unemployment for all adult women declined to 5.7 percent from 6.2 percent a year ago, while unemployment for adult Hispanic women rose to 8.1 percent from 7.7 percent. For single mothers it rose to 9.3 percent from 9.1 percent last year. The unemployment for adult African-American men declined to 10.8 percent from 13.4 percent a year ago.

While black men suffered more job losses than black women during the recession, black women continued to lose jobs during the recovery while black men regained jobs. Between June 2009 and June 2011, black women lost 258,000 jobs while black men gained 127,000 jobs, according to government data.

And though black women represented 12.5 percent of all American women workers in June 2009, in the two years following, black women accounted for more than 42 percent of jobs lost by all women, according to the National Women’s Law Center.