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This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

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10.2% — that's the most important number from the October Employment Report. For the first time since 1983, the over 1 out of every 10 American is out of work. How's that for starting your Friday with some sobering news?


The 190,000 jobs lost in October means that since the start of the recession in December, 2007, 8.2 million people have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3%. The numbers in and of themselves would by bad enough, but they don't accurately reflect just how hard it is to find a job. For that, you need to drill down to the U-6 measure of employment, or as my friend the economist likes to say, "the true pain threshold." U-6 starts with the total number of unemployed and adds part time employees and those who are "marginally attached," which means all of those folks people who took crappy jobs that are beneath their skill levels. The U-6 was 17.5% last month.

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By Nancy F. Smith of CBS MoneyWatch.com

Among the most pervasive and long-lasting effects of the Lehman Brothers failure — and the economic collapse it exemplified — has been the pain felt by the American labor force. When the firm failed on September 15, 2008, and the credit markets slammed shut, a wave of sheer panic swept across businesses big and small as they scrambled to shore up lines of credit and gird for what most believed would be a significant economic downturn. The result: What had been a relatively predictable and gradual rise in unemployment since the beginning of the recession in December 2007 became a hemorrhage as the unemployment rate jumped from 6.2 percent that September to 9.7 percent a year later. Over the past year, about 6 million Americans have lost their jobs. Another 9 million find themselves in the category of involuntary part-time workers, a jump of 3.7 million in just over 12 months. The economy must create 125,000 jobs a month just to stay even with population growth, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and clearly, it’s not.



But it’s not the sheer numbers of jobs shed that will be a lasting legacy of the death of Lehman Brothers. Already, job loss is slowing, and the recession may have ended. Rather it’s the way those numbers will shake out to reshape the contours of the labor force. Here, the winners and losers in the post-Lehman world.

Women Will Bring Home the Bacon

One key factor shaping the new reality facing America’s workforce is the relative ascendance of women. Since May 2007, the number of jobs held by men aged 25 to 64 has fallen by 4.7 percent a year; for women in the same age group, the loss is 1.7 percent. Women aged 55 to 64 actually have gained jobs, while every other group in the prime working years lost jobs. The gap in jobless rates between men and women has been increasing. According to BLS data, the August unemployment rate for men was more than 10 percent; for women, 7.6 percent. That 2.4 percent gap is an all-time high.

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The Labor Department’s Weekly Jobless Claims show that new job loss is tapering off…that’s what I’ll report for my radio brief later today. Still, while the employment trend is improving, it’s worth noting that a slew of jobs have vanished and will not return any time soon.<

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