The American Spectator

AmSpecBlog

Sept. Job Losses Worse Than Expected; Unemployment 9.8%

By Philip Klein on 10.2.09 @ 9:13AM

One thing that the Obama administration seemed to have going for it was the ability to claim that even though the economy was still shedding jobs, it was doing so at a slower pace. They can't make that claim today.

The Labor Department reported this morning that the economy lost 263,000 jobs in September, up from a revised 201,000 in August. Economists were expecting the September number to be around 175,000, according to a Bloomberg survey.The unemployment rate now stands at 9.8 percent.

Some other numbers worth noting:

--The economy has now lost 2.7 million jobs since the economic stimulus bill was signed.

-- There were 706,000 discouraged workers in September, who are not looking for work because they think no jobs are available, and thus are not included in the unemployment rate.