NoJobSurvivor.com

March 5, 2010 The February U-6 unemployment rate rose to 16.8%, an increase of point 3 percentage points, the government reported today.

Long term unemployment, defined to be 27 weeks or more out of work steadied at about 6.1 million, or 41% of unemployed^(U3) people.

Also there were 1,200,000 discouraged workers in February, up from 473,000 a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

The more commonly quoted U-3 was unchanged at 9.7 percent. The number of unemployed persons unchange at 14.9 million and 36,000 jobs were lost in February.

NOTE: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. For more information, see "BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures," in the October 1995 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

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