FEBRUARY 2010 UNEMPLOYMENT DATA

Cross-posted from National Jobs for All Coalition

FEBRUARY 2010 UNEMPLOYMENT DATA*
(U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS)

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT: 9.7% [Analysis]
A year earlier, the number of unemployed persons was 12.7
million, and the jobless rate was 8.2 percent. [BLS]

White 8.8%
African American 15.8%
Hispanic 12.4%
Asian** 8.4%
Persons with a disability ** 13.8%
Men 20 years and over 10.0%
Women 20 years and over 8.0%
Teen-agers (16-19 years) 25.0%
Black teens 42.0%

Officially unemployed 14.9 million

HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT

Working part-time because can't find a full-time job: 8.8 million
People who want jobs but are not looking so are not counted in official statistics (of which about 2.5 million** searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available for work during the reference week.) 6.2 million

Total: 29.9 million (18.7% of the labor force)

Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

**Not seasonally adjusted.
*See Uncommon Sense #4 for an explanation of the unemployment measures.

In addition, millions more were working full-time, year-round, yet earned
less than the official poverty level for a family of four. In 2008, the latest
year available, that number was 17.8 million, 17.1 percent of full-time, full-year workers (estimated from Current Population Survey, Bur. of the Census, 2009).

In December, 2009, the latest month available, the number of job
openings was only 2.5 million, according to the BLS, Job Openings and
Labor Turnover Estimates, February 9, 2010.+ Thus there are now nearly 12 job-wanters for each available job.[Numbers are not comparable with previous months as methods have been revised.]

Read more here