Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press 

under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that 

the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. 

Statement of 

Keith Hall 

Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

before the 

Joint Economic Committee 

UNITED STATES CONGRESS 

Friday, November 6, 2009

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and 

unemployment data we released this morning. 

In October, the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the 

highest rate since April 1983, and nonfarm payroll employment 

declined by 190,000. Since the start of the recession, payroll 

employment has fallen by 7.3 million. 

Job losses have averaged 188,000 over the past 3 months. 

The declines are much smaller and less widespread than they were 

last fall and winter. Nevertheless, some industries are still 

experiencing notable employment declines. In October, 
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construction lost 62,000 jobs, manufacturing 61,000, and retail 

trade 40,000. 

In construction, October job losses were concentrated among 

nonresidential specialty trades and heavy construction. Earlier 

in the recession, the residential components of construction 

accounted for the majority of the job losses in the industry. 

In manufacturing, there were notable job cuts in machinery, 

nonmetallic minerals, computer products, and printing in 

October. Retail job losses were concentrated in sporting goods 

and book stores and in department stores. Earlier in the 

downturn, large job losses were spread across a wider range of 

retail industries. 

One of the few industries where employment continued to 

grow during the recession has been health care, which added 

29,000 jobs in October. Employment in temporary help services 

rose by 34,000 over the month, the first significant increase in 

that industry since the start of the recession in December 2007. 

Average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory 

workers in the private sector were up by 5 cents in October to 

$18.72. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have 

risen by 2.4 percent. From September 2008 to September 2009, 

the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical 

Workers (CPI-W) declined by 1.7 percent. 
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Turning to measures from the survey of households, the 

unemployment rate increased from 9.8 to 10.2 percent over the 

month. Since the recession began, the jobless rate has 

increased by 5.3 percentage points, while the number of 

unemployed has more than doubled to 15.7 million. 

The number of long-term unemployed remained high. In 

October, 5.6 million workers had been jobless for 27 weeks or 

more. 

Among the employed, there were 9.3 million persons working 

part time in October who would have preferred full-time work. 

The number of such workers has doubled since the start of the 

recession. 

Among those outside the labor force--that is, persons 

neither working nor looking for work--the number of discouraged 

workers in October was 808,000, up from 484,000 a year earlier. 

These individuals are not currently looking for work because 

they believe no jobs are available for them. 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment fell by 190,000 in 

October, and the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent. 

My colleagues and I now would be glad to answer your 

questions.