Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5 Percent

The official jobless rate -- 10.2 percent in October, up from 9.8 percent in September -- remains lower than the early 1980s peak of 10.8 percent.

 

For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession -- until now.

With the release of the jobs report, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.

In all, more than one out of every six workers -- 17.5 percent -- were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982. Construction and landscape workers have been hit particularly hard. It could take a few more years before this sector rebounds.

This includes the officially unemployed, who have looked for work in the last four weeks. It also includes discouraged workers, who have looked in the past year, as well as millions of part-time workers who want to be working full time.

The broader rate is highest today, sometimes 20 percent, in states that had big housing bubbles, like California and Arizona. States that have large manufacturing sectors, like Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina also suffer from high unemployment.

- Courtesy of New York Times