Oct payroll employment continues to trend up (+80,000); jobless rate (9.0%) changes little

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- OCTOBER 2011


Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000),
and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.0 percent, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment in the private
sector rose, with modest job growth continuing in professional and
businesses services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining.
Government employment continued to trend down.

Household Survey Data

Both the number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the
unemployment rate (9.0 percent) changed little over the month. The
unemployment rate has remained in a narrow range from 9.0 to 9.2
percent since April. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate declined for
blacks (15.1 percent) in October, while the rates for adult men (8.8
percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (24.1 percent), whites
(8.0 percent), and Hispanics (11.4 percent) showed little or no
change. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.3 percent, not seasonally
adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

In October, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27
weeks and over) declined by 366,000 to 5.9 million, or 42.4 percent of
total unemployment. (See table A-12.)

Read more: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

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IIRC, the expectation, at least that of a commentator on the Nightly Business Report last night, was that there would have been an increase of 100,000 jobs.

Monthly Employment Reports

The large print giveth, and the fine print taketh away.

A DU'er pointed out several months ago that, if I'm going to post the link to the press release, I should include the link to all the tables that provide additional ways of examining the data. Specifically, I should post a link to "Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization." Table A-15 includes those who are not considered unemployed, on the grounds that they have become discouraged about the prospects of finding a job and have given up looking. Here are those links.

Employment Situation

Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

From the February 10, 2011, "DOL Newsletter":

Take Three

Secretary Solis answers three questions about how the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates unemployment rates.

How does BLS determine the unemployment rate and the number of jobs that were added each month?

BLS uses two different surveys to get these numbers. The "household survey," or Current Population Survey (CPS), involves asking people, from about 60,000 households, a series of questions to assess each person in the household's activities including work and searching for work. Their responses give us the unemployment rate. The "establishment survey," or Current Employment Statistics (CES), surveys 140,000 employers about how many people they have on their payrolls. These results determine the number of jobs being added or lost.

[Lucky Luciano]

1. Additional positive fine print is that Sept was revised up a lot. nt