Nov 20, 2008

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October Unemployment at 6.5%

The DOL released the new jobs numbers, and they’re more dismal than we expected, which is likely what most people expected.  

The number is 542,000 – that’s how many new applications for unemployment benefits were filed last week. A week before that, the number was 515,000.  That’s a 27,000-job difference in a week, which is a lot.

Economists were expecting this week’s number to be more like 505,000.  

In case you get swamped in these numbers like I do, keep in mind we’re talking about over 540,000 new claims for unemployment.  Which means the 515,000 from the week before aren’t included.  And this number doesn’t generally count people who are laid off but don’t file for unemployment, including most employees with severance packages and those who have given up the job search altogether.

This number puts the jobless rate at its highest point in 16 years, and Federal analysts predict the unemployment rate to exceed 7% sometime in 2009, according to the AP.

HT – US News