Unemployment Rises Slightly In October

The Labor Department has released its employment figures for October, and the good news is that the economy created 204,000 new jobs during the month. Normally that would be good news, since that is a higher number than is needed to account for new people entering the workforce -- but the unemployment rate actually rose in October (from 7.2% in September to 7.3% in October). That means more jobs were lost than were created.

The number of people employed fell by 735,000 (from 144,303,000 in September to 143,568,000 in October) -- and the number of people officially counted as unemployed rose by 17,000 (from 11,255,000 in September to 11,272,000 in October). It's unclear whether the rise in the unemployment rate is due more to the government shutdown or to the austerity imposed by the sequestration cuts, but I think both probably played a part. The number of those working part-time because they can't find full-time work also rose by 124,000 (from 7,926,000 in September to 8,050,000 in October).

Here is the demographic breakdown of official October unemployment:
Adult men...............7.0%
Adult women...............6.4%
Teenagers...............22.2%
Whites...............6.3%
Blacks...............13.1%
Asians...............5.2%
Hispanics...............9.1%
No high school diploma...............10.9%
High school grads...............7.3%
Some college...............6.3%
Bachelor's or more...............3.8%

Here are the relevant numbers for October.

Size of the civilian workforce:

154,839,000

Number of officially unemployed persons:

11,272,000

Official unemployment rate:

7.28%

Number of people marginally-attached to the workforce (unemployed but no longer counted in the official count, because they didn't look for work in the last 4 weeks):

2,283,000

Real unemployment figure (officially unemployed + marginally-attached) -- probably still an undercount:

13,555,000

Real unemployment rate:

8.75%

Underemployed persons (working part-time because full-time work is not available):

8,050,000

Number of unemployed and underemployed persons:

21,605,000

Unemployment/underemployment rate:

13.95%