Businesses cut 190,000 non-farm jobs last month as unemployment reached 10.2%, the highest rate since April 1983, the Department of Labor reported today.
There were 15.7 million people unemployed in October and that represented a 0.4% increase over September's numbers.
The economy has lost 8.2 million jobs since the current recession started in December 2007.
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The department said the unemployment rate would have been even higher if it had included the 2.4 million people it describes as "marginally attached" to the labor force, an increase from 1.6 million in October 2008. These are individuals who wanted to work and were available and had searched for a job within the last year, but not within the past four weeks.
The number of persons unemployed for 27 weeks or more remained at 5.6 million.
Wages remained sluggish; average hourly earnings grew 0.3%. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings increased 2.4% and average weekly earnings rose 0.9
Employment continued to increase in education/health care and professional and business services.
There were continued job cuts in the manufacturing, construction and retail sectors.
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