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U.S. unemployment steady in December 2009 at 10.0%

The Bureau of Labor Statistics report was released today, and both the number of unemployed persons, at 15.3 million, and the unemployment rate of 10.0%, were unchanged. Employment fell in construction, manufacturing and wholesale trade, while health care and temporary help services added jobs. This version of their report was reissued to replace an incorrect table A-13 in the HTML version; the PDF version had the correct table. Also, seasonally adjusted Household Survey Data appear in the report for January 2009 through November 2009. The revision occurs at the end of each calendar year.

At the start of the recession, in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.7 million and the unemployment rate was 5.0%.

There is an abundance :-) of tabular data in the report. Please see the original report for the tables. I quote some sections of summary statements below:

“Unemployment rates for the major worker groups–adult men (10.2 percent), adult women (8.2 percent), teenagers (27.1 percent), whites (9.0 percent), blacks (16.2 percent), and Hispanics (12.9 percent)–showed little change in December. The unemployment rate for Asians was 8.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

Among the unemployed, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up, reaching 6.1 million. In December, 4 in 10 unemployed workers were jobless for 27 weeks or longer. (See table A-9.)

The civilian labor force participation rate fell to 64.6 percent in December. The employment-population ratio declined to 58.2 percent. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was about unchanged at 9.2 million in December and has been relatively flat since March. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-5.)

About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in December, an increase of 578,000 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. (See table A-13.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 929,000 discouraged workers in December, up from 642,000 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 1.6 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.”

The report had the following to say about employment in individual job categories:

“Construction employment declined by 53,000 in December, with job losses throughout the industry. Employment in construction has fallen by 1.6 million since the recession began.

In December, employment in manufacturing decreased by 27,000. The average monthly decline for the last 6 months of 2009 (-41,000) was much lower than the average monthly decline for the first half of the year (-171,000). Since the recession began, manufacturing employment has fallen by 2.1 million; three-fourths of this drop occurred in the durable goods component (-1.6 million).

Wholesale trade employment declined by 18,000 in December, with the majority of the decline occurring among durable goods wholesalers. Employment in retail trade was little changed over the month, although general merchandise stores lost 15,000 jobs.

Temporary help services added 47,000 jobs in December. Since reaching a low point in July, temporary help services employment has risen by 166,000.

Health care employment continued to increase in December (22,000), with notable gains in offices of physicians (9,000) and home health care services (8,000). The health care industry has added 631,000 jobs since the recession began.”

All in all, the decreasing rates of declining employment in some categories, and the increased employment in temporary services, are good signs. Increases in “temp workers” often occurs before “permanent” :-) workers are hired/rehired. There is also often an increase in the hours/week worked by existing staff before people are hired/rehired.

“In December, the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.2 hours. The manufacturing work- week, at 40.4 hours, and factory overtime, at 3.4 hours, were unchanged over the month. Since May, the manufacturing workweek has increased by 1.0 hour. (See table B-2.)”

It looks like the “unemployment piece” (a “trailing indicator”) of this recession is starting to turn around. Let’s hope that the turnaround continues.

-Bill at

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