November 06, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rate in October 2006

The number of unemployed persons (6.7 million) edged down in October, and the unemployment rate declined to 4.4 percent.

Unemployment rate, October 2005-October 2006
[Chart data—TXT]

A year earlier, the number of unemployed persons was 7.4 million and the jobless rate was 4.9 percent.

Unemployment rates for most major worker groups—adult men, teenagers, whites, and blacks—showed little or no change over the month. The jobless rates for adult women and Hispanics fell in October.

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are seasonally adjusted. More information can be found in "The Employment Situation: October 2006" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 06-1903.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

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