This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Odctober Employment Report.



The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses over the month were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade..









Establishment Data







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Highlights





190,000 jobs were lost in total vs. 263,000 jobs last month.

62,000 construction jobs were lost vs. 64,000 last month.

61,000 manufacturing jobs were lost vs. 51,000 last month.

61,000 service providing jobs were lost vs. 147,000 last month.

40,000 retail trade jobs were lost vs. 39,000 last month.

18,000 professional and business services jobs were added vs. 8,000 lost last month.

vs. 8,000 lost last month. 45,000 education and health services jobs were added vs. 3,000 added last month.

vs. 3,000 added last month. 37,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were lost vs. 9,000 last month.

00,000 government jobs were lost vs. 53,000 last month.

A total of 129,000 goods producing jobs were lost (higher paying jobs).

The one cheery bit of news in the above numbers is the loss of 53,000 government jobs. Unfortunately, this trend is likely to reverse in a major way with as of yet unannounced son-of-stimulus and grandson-of-stimulus jobs packages.

improvement

Index of Aggregate Weekly Hours

Birth Death Model Revisions 2008

Birth Death Model Revisions 2009





Birth/Death Model Revisions

However, what does stand out last month at -33,000 jobs and again this month at -36,000 Leisure and Hospitality Jobs

Leisure and Hospitality Categories

Arts, entertainment, and recreation

Food services and drinking places

Hotels and other accommodations

BLS Black Box

The net birth/death model component figures are unique to each month and exhibit a seasonal pattern that can result in negative adjustments in some months. These models do not attempt to correct for any other potential error sources in the CES estimates such as sampling error or design limitations.

Note that the net birth/death figures are not seasonally adjusted, and are applied to not seasonally adjusted monthly employment links to determine the final estimate.

The most significant potential drawback to this or any model-based approach is that time series modeling assumes a predictable continuation of historical patterns and relationships and therefore is likely to have some difficulty producing reliable estimates at economic turning points or during periods when there are sudden changes in trend.

Household Data

In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2 percent, the highest rate since April 1983.



Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.



Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7 percent) and whites (9.5 percent) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (27.6 percent), blacks (15.7 percent), and Hispanics (13.1 percent) were little changed over the month.



The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month at 65.1 percent. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in October, falling to 58.5 percent.



The number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in October at 9.3 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.



Persons Not in the Labor Force



About 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in October, reflecting an increase of 736,000 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.



Among the marginally attached, there were 808,000 discouraged workers in October, up from 484,000 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 other 1.6 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in October had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Some "Recovery"

Table A-5 Part Time Status

The key take-away from this series are the millions of workers whose hours will rise before companies start hiring more workers.

Table A-12

Grim Statistics

Depression Level Statistics

I consider these job losses to be depression level totals. Admittedly conditions are not as bad as the great depression, but this is certainly no ordinary recession by any economic measure including lending, housing, bank failures, jobs, the stock market, commodity prices, treasury yields etc. For more on this idea please see