September National Unemployment Update

Posted Friday, October 02 2009

The national unemployment rate data has been updated for September 2009 along with the alternative measures, demographic, and duration data.

Update: Well, not much improved in this report. U6, the broadest measure of unemployment published by the BLS, increased to 17% last month. All other alternative measures creeped up as well.

Unemployment duration also increased last month. The fraction of unemployed who have been unemployed for more than 15 weeks increased by 2.7 percentage points. As the duration chart shows, individuals who have been unemployed for more than 15 weeks is higher than ever. We're at a record for this time series. This is why some are calling for extending unemployment benefits. People are just having a much harder time getting a job in this recession than in those past. CR also points out the long term unemployment issue.