Business and Economy: Unemployment rate remains at 6.1 percent
October 3, 2008 by chrisgraham
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Unemployment held at 6.1 percent in September, completing a 12-month cycle that saw the ranks of the unemployed grow by 2.2 million Americans.
Among the interesting tidbits in the data released by the U.S. Department of Labor this morning:
- The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) stands at 2 million, more than 700,000 people higher than September 2007.
- Unemployment among African-Americans was at 11.4 percent; among Hispanics it was 7.8 percent; among whites it was 5.4 percent; and among Asians it was 3.8 percent.
- Overall, 9.4 million Americans seeking employment are currently out of work.
- The number of Americans working part-time for economic reasons rose by 337,000 to 6.1 million in September. That is an increase of 1.6 million since September 2007.
Quick math - the number of measurable unemployed and underemployed is 15.5 million, about 10 percent or so of the U.S. labor pool.
All stats say there are just over 9 million unemployed. There are also 5.2 million job openings so there is a gap but there are still lots of high paying jobs posted on employment sites:
http://www.linkedin.com (networking)
http://www.indeed.com (aggregated listings)
http://www.realmatch.com (matches you to jobs)
I see six figure jobs all over the place.