November 12, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rate 6 percent in October

The unemployment rate, at 6.0 percent, was essentially unchanged in October, as was the number of unemployed persons, 8.8 million.

[Chart data—TXT]

Unemployment rates for major worker groups—adult men (5.6 percent), adult women (5.2 percent), teenagers (17.1 percent), whites (5.1 percent), blacks (11.5 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (7.2 percent)—also were little changed. 

Two million unemployed persons had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, about the same level as in September. They represented 23.0 percent of the total unemployed.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. Numbers in this article are seasonally adjusted. For more information, check out The Employment Situation: October 2003 (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 03-675.