What’s Behind the 10.2% Unemployment Rate

Posted on | November 6, 2009 | No Comments

As expected, the national unemployment rate reached, and then exceeded, 10% in October.  The number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million.  That’s 8.2 million more unemployed than in December 2007, the start of the recession.  Unemployment rates for minorities continued to rise, landing at 15.7% for blacks and 13.1% for Hispanics (up 0.4 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively).

As of the end of October, about 36% of all unemployed people, or 5.6 million people, were unemployed for 27 weeks or more.  Just over 9 million people worked part-time jobs because they couldn’t find full-time work, and nearly 2 million people gave up and reported not searching for a job in the last 4 weeks.

What’s behind these numbers?

Simple.  The old familiar industries–Construction, Manufacturing and Retail–continued to dump jobs, and companies found that they could do a lot with few workers (Read “One More Reason You Can’t Find a Job”).

Here’s a breakdown of where the job losses occurred.

THE BIGGEST LOSERS

1. Construction (-62,000)
2. Manufacturing (-61,000)
3. Retail (-40,000)
4. Hospitality & Leisure (-37,000)

Depressing as this all sounds, especially if you work in an industry listed above, there’s some good news.  The rate at which jobs are cut is decreasing.  Employers appear to be reaching a point at which they will retain existing workers (fewer or no more layoffs), and consider making necessary hires (people core to their business operations).

More good news: The Health Care, Education and Government sectors continued to add jobs, and some segments within the “Biggest Loser” industries are actually added jobs (They’re just being overshadowed and outnumbered by job losses).

BRIGHT SPOTS IN BIGGEST LOSER INDUSTRIES

Manufacturing:

• Beverages and tobacco added 400 jobs in October
• Leather and related goods added 0 jobs, but didn’t loss any
• Motor vehicles and parts added 4,600 jobs

Retail:

• Clothing & accessories stores added 2,700 jobs
• Health & personal care stores added 2,100 jobs
• Gas stations added 1,000 jobs
• Furniture & home decor stores added 500 jobs

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