Employment Situation for October

The Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS) released employment data for October 2009. The standard U-3 unemployment rate moved to 10.2 percent from 9.8 in September, a 0.4% jump. Non-farm payroll dropped again by -190,000 workers. A smaller decrease. Since the recession started, the unemployment rate has increase by 5.3% and the number of unemployed has increased by 8.2 million. That is, of the 15.7 millions currently unemployed there are 8.2 million additional workers who are now unemployed since the recession began in December 2007.

Women continued to have a lower employment rate that of men (8.1% vs. 10.7%). Black unemployment jumped 0.4% to 15.7. The Hispanic unemployment rate was 13.1 percent.

There was some small employment good news. Temporary help workers increased by 34,000 in October. Temporary help has been shedding jobs up until July. Average work week was at 33.00 hours (unchanged).

Wages (average hourly earnings) also rose 0.05 cents in October to $18.72 dollars and hour.

Finally, August and September's Non Farm Payroll job loses were revised downward. The august number was reduced from -201,000 to -154,000 and September was reduced from
-263,000 to -219,000.

And now for the graphics. Graphs make the data real !!! Graphs of the the Big-3: Unemployment, Black Unemployment and Non Farm Payroll

Standard U-3 unemployment rate



Black Unemployment Rate


Non Farm Payroll