THOMPSON STATEMENT ON NATIONAL 
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE ANNOUNCEMENT
New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today issued the following statement after it was announced that the nation's unemployment rate is 9.4% and 345,000 jobs were lost in the month of May:
"If there is any silver lining in today's announcement that our national unemployment rate is at a level not seen in a quarter century, it is the fact that May job loss numbers were roughly half of what we have seen in previous months and far less than what economists were projecting. This is cause for cautious optimism that the intensity of this recession is easing a bit.
My office still forecasts that once this recession is over, more than 250,000 New Yorkers will have lost their jobs, bringing the total of unemployed in our City to roughly 400,000. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and provide updates as new information emerges."