On August 2, the U.S. Treasury Department published a report titled Updated Estimates of Newly Hired Employees Eligible for the Hire Act Tax Exemption.  If you have a problem with that link, you can still read the Department’s press summary.

This new report provides monthly updated estimates of potential eligibility under the HIRE Act, including data through June 2010. According to the updated estimates, from February 2010 to June 2010, businesses hired 5.6 million new workers who had been unemployed for eight weeks or longer;

While it is interesting that businesses hired 5.6 million potentially eligible workers, the Treasure Department can not tell us anything yet about how many employees have actually been claimed as eligible.  That number is much much smaller — but how small we won’t know until next year after the 2010 tax returns has been analyzed.