Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 240,000 in October, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. October’s drop in payroll employment followed declines of 127,000 in August and 284,000 in September, as revised. Employment has fallen by 1.2 million in the first 10 months of 2008; over half of the decrease has occurred in the past 3 months.

[Read more →]

Unemployment rates have been worse in the last thirty years. For Blacks and Hispanics, the current rates are as close to record lows as they are to peak unemployment rates. Overall, it appears that unemployment rates are trending lower if you consider the period 1980 to date.

[Read more →]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has kept records on Hispanic unemployment since 1973. That data is publicly available, and they will even graph it for you.

The lowest Hispanic unemployment rate on record: October 2006 at 4.7 percent. The second lowest: 4.9 percent in both May and December 2006. The President when these record lows were set? George W. Bush.

[Read more →]

The August numbers are out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

144,579,000 people were employed. A record number.

The unemployment rate was 4.7%. For any month prior to October 1997, that would have been a record low.

The black unemployment rate was 8.8%. For every month prior to June of 1998, that would have been a record low [...]

[Read more →]

Apples and oranges time again for job growth analysis.

[Read more →]

June 2005 numbers, via the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

141,638,000 Americans employed, a record number.
7,486,000 Americans unemployed. The lowest number since October 2001.
Unemployment rate of 5%. Lowest since October 2001. Lower than any month in the period 1984 through April 1997.
Black unemployment 10.3%. Still lower than all but a handful of months in the period 1984 [...]

[Read more →]

The number of people employed reached an all-time high of 140,500,000. This represents a gain of 2,730,000 people employed since George Bush took office in January 2001.
The number of people unemployed reached its lowest level since October 2001. The unemployment rate of 5.2% reached its lowest level since September 2001. It was also lower than [...]

[Read more →]

BLS:

140,144.000 people employed, the fourth highest number in history
251,000 more unemployed than in January 2005
30,000 fewer discouraged workers than in January 2005

[Read more →]

All I can say is that I wish these numbers had been available on Monday. Can you imagine what the vote would have been then?

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 337,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 5.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported [...]

[Read more →]

The number of unemploye is 8,003,000. This is the lowest number since October 2001.

The unemployment rate of 5.4% is unchanged from last month and is the lowest rate since October 2001.

The number employed is 139,480,000. This is down from the record high of last month but only July and August 2004 have higher employment numbers.

The [...]

[Read more →]

DOL In the week ending Sept. 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 333,000, an increase of 16,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 317,000. The 4-week moving average was 338,000, unchanged from the previous week’s revised average of 338,000.

This is a DOL produced graph. Had I done it, it would [...]

[Read more →]