December 10, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rate in November 2007

The number of unemployed persons (7.2 million) was about unchanged in November, and the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent for the third month in a row.

[Chart data—TXT]

A year earlier, the number of unemployed persons was 6.8 million, and the jobless rate was 4.5 percent.

Unemployment rates for the major worker groups—adult men (4.1 percent), adult women (4.1 percent), teenagers (16.3 percent), whites (4.2 percent), blacks (8.4 percent), and Hispanics (5.7 percent)—showed little or no change in November.

These data are from the Current Population Survey program and are seasonally adjusted. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation: November 2007" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 07-1849.