December 05, 2009
Unemployment Rate Fell to 10.0 Percent in November
Filed under: News
Vision Payroll

The unemployment rate edged down to 10.0% in November, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-11,000), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently. In the prior 3 months, payroll job losses had averaged 135,000 a month. In November, employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and information, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

In November, both the number of unemployed persons, at 15.4 million, and the unemployment rate, at 10.0%, edged down. At the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.5 million, and the jobless rate was 4.9%.

Among the major worker groups, unemployment rates for adult men (10.5%), adult women (7.9%), teenagers (26.7%), whites (9.3%), blacks (15.6%), and Hispanics (12.7%) showed little change in November. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.3%, not seasonally adjusted.

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs fell by 463,000 in November. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million. The percentage of unemployed persons jobless for 27 weeks or more increased by 2.7 percentage points to 38.3%.

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed in November at 65.0%. The employment-population ratio was unchanged at 58.5%.

The number of people working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in November at 9.2 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in November, an increase of 376,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 861,000 discouraged workers in November, up from 608,000 a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

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