National Unemployment Rate Climbs to 10.2% as 190,000 New Jobs Lost in October

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Signs pointing to the easing of the recession that began in December 2007 continue to mount as the October 2009 national unemployment figures were released on Friday. While additional jobs were lost and the overall unemployment rate climbed from 9.8% to 10.2%, the total number of jobs lost during the month was greatly reduced, at only 190,000. This puts the total number of people unemployed in the United States at 15.7 million as the country reaches its highest unemployment rate since April of 1983.

Since the recession began, 8.2 million people have lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate has risen 5.3%. The long-term unemployment figure, representing people who have been jobless for 27 weeks or longer, remained essentially unchanged in October, with 5.6 million, or 35.6%, of unemployed people falling into this category,

In addition, 2.4 million people were only marginally employed in October, a significant increase from a year ago when the figure was at 736,000. For a person to be marginally unemployed, he or she is not in the labor force, but has wanted and has looked for employment in the previous 12 months. These people are not added to the monthly unemployment figure because they have not looked for work in the 4 weeks prior the monthly figures.

Among the marginally employed workers, there is another smaller, but much more serious category: discouraged workers. Discouraged workers are people who are not currently seeking work because they feel that there are no jobs available for them. In October, there were 808,000 discouraged workers, nearly double the amount of the year before.

On the construction and manufacturing side of the coin, job losses continued to mount. In the construction sector, 62,000 additional jobs were lost in October. Since the beginning of the recession, 1.6 million construction jobs have been lost. The average monthly construction job-loss numbers have been getting better, however. During the past six months, construction job losses have averaged 67,000 per month, while this figure was 117,000 jobs per month for the six months prior. The bulks of the construction job losses occurred in the nonresidential specialty trade category (30,000 jobs lost) and the heavy construction category (14,000 jobs lost).

In the manufacturing sector, 61,000 jobs were lost during October. During the past four months, manufacturing job losses have averaged 51,000 jobs per month, a significant improvement over the 161,000 jobs per month the manufacturing sector was losing between October 2008 and June 2009. In total, the manufacturing sector has lost 2.1 million jobs since the beginning of the recession.

While these job losses are certainly not good news, spending in the manufacturing sector is showing signs of improving heading into 2010. This should mean that construction and manufacturing job losses will continue to decline next year. As spending improves in 2010, construction jobs in particular should become more abundant as companies once again open their collective wallets and invest in the future.

The past two years have been very difficult on the jobs market in the U.S. While people seem to be taking the current administration's claims of hundreds of thousands of new jobs created via the stimulus bill with a grain of salt, new jobs are being created, as evidenced by the declining monthly job losses numbers. The national jobless rate is likely to continue to climb into 2010 as it takes time to reverse the trends of the past two years, but the reversal process has begun. Hopefully, by mid-2010 we will see manufacturing and construction employment increasing rather than falling, which will be a solid sign that the recession is finally coming to an end.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy related markets. For more than 26 years, Industrial Info has provided plant and project opportunity databases, market forecasts, high resolution maps, and daily industry news.