December 9, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment rates by sex, November 2008

In November, the unemployment rate for all persons 16 years and over rose from 6.5 to 6.7 percent. The unemployment rates for adult men (6.5 percent) and adult women (5.5 percent) each continued to trend up in November.

[Chart data—TXT]

Looking at other demographic data, the unemployment rates for teenagers (20.4 percent), whites (6.1 percent), blacks (11.2 percent), and Hispanics (8.6 percent) showed little change over the month.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the overall unemployment rate has risen by 1.7 percentage points.

These data are from the BLS Current Population Survey program, and are seasonally adjusted. More information can be found in "The Employment Situation: November 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-1774.

Related TED article:

• Payrolls in November 2008