The nation's unemployment rate ticked up slightly in August to 9.6 percent, an increase of just one-tenth of a percentage point over the July rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning.

There were 14.9 million jobless workers in the country last month, up slightly from July as employers reported cutting another 54,000 non-farm jobs. Much of the job loss was directly attributable to the ending of the work on the U.S. Census. The federal government's payroll fell in July by 114,000. That loss was only partially made up for by the private sector, which added 67,000 jobs.

Long-term unemployment fell during the month. The number of unemployed people who were out of work more than six months dropped to 6.2 million, a decline of nearly 300,000 people. They now make up 42 percent of the unemployed population.

The so-called real unemployment rate - the measure of people who are jobless and looking for work, those who have given up looking but want a job and those who are working part-time because full-time work is not available - rose in August to 16.7 percent from 16.5 percent in July.

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