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 today. Construction employment rose sharply over the month, and several service-providing industries also added jobs.
Unemployment (Household Survey Data)
Both the number of unemployed persons, 8.1 million, and the unemployment rate, 5.5 percent, were essentially unchanged from September to October. The jobless rate has held fairly steady thus far this year and remains below its most recent high of 6.3 percent in June 2003.In October, the unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (4.9 percent), adult women (4.8 percent), teenagers (17.2 percent), whites (4.7 percent), blacks (10.7 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (6.7 percent)--showed little or no change over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 4.8 percent in October, not seasonally adjusted.
Total Employment and the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)
Total employment edged up in October to 139.8 million, and the employment-population ratio--the proportion of the population age 16 and over with jobs-remained at 62.3 percent. The civilian labor force rose by 367,000 over the month to 147.9 million, and the labor force participation rate was unchanged at 65.9 percent.Over the year, the number of persons who held more than one job rose by 519,000 to 8.0 million, not seasonally adjusted. These multiple jobholders represented 5.7 percent of total employment in October, compared with 5.4 percent a year earlier.
Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)
The number of persons who were marginally attached to the labor force was 1.6 million in October, about the same as a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. There were 429,000 discouraged workers in October, little changed from a year earlier. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.2 million marginally attached had not searched for work for reasons such as school or family responsibilities.
