Oct. 3—Approximately 10.5 million Americans are unemployed and want to work but cannot find jobs, according to today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report. And some 2.1 million of the unemployed have been looking for work 27 weeks or longer, a number that has risen sharply since this time last year.
The official unemployment rate remained at 6.1 percent in September, representing approximately 9 million people. But that number doesn’t include the 1.5 million Americans too discouraged to look for work in the month preceding the BLS survey. That 10.5 million sum, plus the increase to nearly 5 million Americans working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, brings the sum of unemployed, underemployed and discouraged workers in September to a total of approximately 15.5 million, up substantially from 15 million in August.
And in a continuing blow to American manufacturing, the economy shed a net 29,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs in September, the 37th consecutive month of manufacturing losses, the BLS reports. The economy has lost a total of nearly 1.9 million manufacturing jobs since the recession began in March 2001.
The number of workers filing for unemployment rose the week ending Sept. 27, when 399,000 people filed for unemployment insurance benefits, compared with 386,000 new claims the week before.
Job Promises Not Kept
The Bush administration has predicted its economic policies, including the tax cut package (the so-called the “Jobs and Growth Plan”) that took effect in July, would create 344,000 jobs each month, starting in July 2003. But the administration fell 287,000 jobs short of its promise in September: The economy created only a net 57,000 jobs last month, according to the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute. And of the 66,000 new professional and service-sector jobs, roughly half were with temporary employment services, which often pay poorly and provide few or no benefits. The nation now has lost a net 3.2 million private-sector jobs since President George W. Bush took office.
“Despite the welcome announcement today that our nation gained 57,000 jobs in September, the economic picture remains grim,” says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “Working Americans cannot be confident that the modest jobs bump, primarily in temporary jobs, means the nation has turned the corner on the longest period of sustained job loss since the Great Depression.”
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