Increase in unemployment rate in January 2009
February 10, 2009
Both the number of unemployed persons (11.6 million) and the unemployment rate (7.6 percent) rose in January. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 4.1 million and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.7 percentage points.
The unemployment rate continued to trend upward in January for adult men (7.6 percent), adult women (6.2 percent), whites (6.9 percent), blacks (12.6 percent), and Hispanics (9.7 percent). The jobless rate for teenagers was unchanged at 20.8 percent.
Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs increased to 7.0 million in January. This measure has grown by 3.2 million during the last 12 months.
These data are from the Current Population Survey and are seasonally adjusted. More information can be found in "The Employment Situation: January 2009" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0117.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Editor's Desk, Increase in unemployment rate in January 2009 on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/feb/wk2/art02.htm (visited May 24, 2013).
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