Unemployment Reaches 14-Year High

Washington, DC, Nov. 7, 2008--The U.S. unemployment rate surged to a 14-year high of 6.5% in October as nearly a quarter million jobs were lost, the Labor Department reported Friday.
 
U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by 240,000 in October following a revised decline of 284,000 in September, which was the largest job loss in seven years.
 
So far in 2008, a total of 1.18 million jobs have been lost, with 651,000 coming in just the past three months.

Payrolls in August and September were revised down by a total of 179,000.

In October, unemployment increased by 603,000 to 10.1 million, according to a survey of households. The number of workers forced into part-time hours rose by 645,000 to 6.7 million.

The last time the unemployment rate was as high as 6.5% was in March 1994. Most economists believe the jobless rate will rise to nearly 8% next year.
 
The October employment report was much worse than expected. Economists thought the jobless rate would rise to 6.3% from 6.1% in September, and they expected job losses of around 210,000 in October.

Job losses were deep and widespread across industries, according to the survey of work sites. Of 274 industries, 37.6% were hiring in October, the lowest since June 2003. The brightest spot continued to be health-care, which added 26,000 jobs in October. Government added 23,000 jobs.
 
Construction lost 49,000 jobs.