Employers added 80,000 jobs last month and the unemployment ratedropped slightly to 9%, the Labor Department reported today.

Of the 13.9 million unemployed people in October –down from 14million in September– 6.9 million had been without jobs for 27weeks or more.

It is the first movement in the nation's unemployment rate sinceJune as the rate had been 9.1% in July, August and September. Theunemployment rate has been between 9% and 9.2% since April. As inSeptember, there were job gains in professional business services,health care and construction while government employment declined.The sluggish economic recovery, which the Federal Reservehttp://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/fomcprojtabl20111102.pdf