New jobless claims for the week ending November 7 was 502,000, seasonally-adjusted, which is down 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure 514,00, the Department of Labor (DOL) reported on Thursday. The four-week moving average, which smooths out volatility, was 519,750, down 4,500 from the previous week's revised average of 524,250.

The advance number for seasonally-adjusted insured unemployed during the week ending October 31 was 5,631,000 - down 139,000 from the preceding week's revised number of 5,770,000. The four-week moving average of 5,790,000 is a decrease of 100,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,891,000.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending October 24 were in Puerto Rico at 6.4%, Oregon at 5.4%, and Nevada at 5.2%. Pennsylvania, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, and South Carolina also had insured unemployment rates at 4.5% or more.

For the week ending October 31, the largest increase in initial jobless claims was in Wisconsin, which had 1,501 more claims than in the previous week. Continued layoffs are also evident as an increase in new claims were reported in Illinois with 1,390, Michigan with 1,135, Puerto Rico with 1,101, and Texas with 965 more claims than the previous week.

For that same week, the largest decrease in new claims was in California, which reported 6,752 less jobless claims due to fewer layoffs in the service and construction industries. Florida reported fewer layoffs in the trade, service, construction, agriculture, and manufacturing industries and had 3,409 fewer claims from the previous week. Georgia reported 2,686 fewer claims due to slowing layoffs in the service, trade, construction, and manufacturing industries. New York reported fewer layoffs in service, manufacturing, and trade and had 2,067 fewer claims than the week prior, and North Carolina had 1,872 fewer claims, mostly due to the slowing of layoffs in construction.

The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending October 31 was 4.3%. The national overall unemployment rate rose from 9.8% in September to 10.2% for October, according to the DOL's report from last week. The current unemployment rate is the highest it's been since April 1983.

In October, the number of unemployed increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. Of the unemployed, 5.6 million have been long-term unemployed for 27 weeks or more - 35.6% of the unemployed population.

Among the major worker groups classified and surveyed in October by the DOL, teenagers have the highest unemployment rate at 27.6%. The unemployment rate is 10.7% for adult men, and 8.1% for adult women. Among the DOL-classified ethnic groups, the unemployment rate is 9.5% for whites, 15.7% for blacks, 13.1% for Hispanics, and 7.5% for Asians.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points. Layoffs have been massive across nearly all sectors. Health care is the only sector which has consistently grown, adding 597,000 jobs since the start of the recession.


Source:
Department of Labor