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Melissa Hincha-Ownby

Unemployment rate drops to 9.7% in January 2010

Economists and other financial experts across the nation were surprised to see the unemployment rate dropped to 9.7% in January 2010.
Fri, Feb 05 2010 at 10:59 AM EST
Read more: FINANCIAL CRISIS, GREEN FINANCE

Photo: Saad.Akhtar
The nation closed out 2009 with a flat 10.0 percent unemployment rate, and economists and other financial experts predicted that we’d still see double-digit unemployment as 2010 started. When today’s figures were released, economists, the media (including me), and others were surprised to see that the January 2010 unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent.
 
Although the unemployment rate dropped, there are still nearly 15 million Americans out of work. The amount of long-term unemployed individuals, those that have been without employment for 27 or more weeks, also climbed during the month. In January 2010 there were 6.3 million long-term unemployed workers, which is up from 1.3 million at the start of the recession (December 2007).
 
This month’s report is the first to look at the unemployment rate of several population groups including individuals with a disability (15.2 percent unemployment), Gulf War veterans — post-9/11 (12.6 percent), and foreign born individuals (11.8 percent).
 
While the overall unemployment rate dropped, some trends continued. The construction industry is still seeing job losses; 75,000 more jobs in the construction industry were lost in January. Overall, 1.9 million construction jobs have been lost since December 2007.
 
The manufacturing industry only saw a small drop in January 2010, posting an 11,000-job loss. This is in contrast to the significant drops seen throughout 2009. A few sectors of the industry actually saw job increases in 2010 including motor vehicles and parts (+23,000 jobs) and plastics and rubber products (+6,000 jobs).
 
The federal government also added jobs including 9,000 temporary workers to help complete Census 2010. These 9,000 jobs account for just over one-fourth of the total federal government jobs added in January 2010.
 
While the unemployment figures are better than most expected and improved from December 2009, the threat of a jobless recovery is still there. The GDP is improving, signaling a recovery from the recession, but the jobs aren’t coming as quickly as many would like to see – especially those looking for employment.
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Comments(3)

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Posted By butthole - Fri, Feb 26 2010 at 11:59 AM EST

your a butthole

title says it all

Posted By Royce - Tue, Feb 09 2010 at 6:48 PM EST

9.7 % unemployed!!! REALLY???

Let's see... the United States saw a loss of 4.2 million jobs last year, a very small percentage of those were hired into less paying jobs and that miraculously dropped our unemployment from a nationwide average percentage rate of 10+% last year to 9.7% this year. These numbers do not reflect those who have exceeded their benefits and no longer receive them, nor does it reflect those who haven't had a job yet, nor does it reflect those who were denied benefits because they didn't have enough.... More

Posted By Anonymous - Fri, Feb 05 2010 at 7:24 PM EST

Joe

this is great. the economy needed to have a rebound in job growth. also wall street had a better day than the other days for the past few weeks. i feel that with the number decreasing, that we are on the way to a better economy and hopefully more job growth. i do feel that we need to see the private sector being able to produce these jobs, but once that happens, we will see a greater decrease in the job deficit. hopefully obama gives some incentives for the private sector to be able to post up.... More

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