Jobs, Jobless | featured news

Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the highest in four months. The increase represents a rebound from the previous week's sharp drop. Both swings were largely due to technical factors.

In the wake of the controversial 7.8% unemployment rate reported by the U.S. Labor Department earlier this month, Gallup today said that its nonseasonally adjusted rate fell from 7.9% at the end of September to 7.3% in mid-October. That is a new low since Gallup began collecting employment data in January 2010.

These are anxious days for American workers. Many are underemployed. Others find pay that is simply not keeping up with their expenses.

Hot-job lists may give you an idea of what jobs, on average, employers are trying to fill most. But what really matters is where the jobs are, not what they are.

More than 230,000 jobless Americans will lose their unemployment insurance by this weekend as reductions in the federal program that provides extended benefits to the long-term unemployed take broader effect.

A weak labor market has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits suggests hiring is slowing. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dipped last week by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 386,000. But that was only after the department revised up the previous week's data to show 8,000 more people applied for benefits than first estimated.

The number of Americans filing for jobless aid rose last week to the highest level since January, a development that could raise fears the labor market recovery was stalling after job creation slowed in March.

The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits....

While the unemployment rate dipped to 9 percent, the improvement was seen as mediocre.