The official US unemployment rate jumped to 6.1% in August, with employers shedding jobs for the eighth consecutive month. Revised numbers for earlier months showed even greater losses.

 

The Labor Department reports that over 2.2 million people have been added to jobless rolls over the past 12 months, with a total of 9.4 million US workers unemployed as of August 31, 2008. The number of long-term unemployed -- those workers jobless for 27 weeks or more -- rose by 589,000 over the last 12 months.

 

But government figures don’t tell the whole story, according to workers.org. Labor Department statistics count involuntary part-time jobs as full-time work. The new report excludes farmworkers, undocumented-immigrant labor, and at least 1.6 million “discouraged workers” who have given up looking for jobs that no longer exist. It excludes 2.3 million prisoners, many of whom toil in slave labor conditions for pennies a day. The 6.1% unemployment figure represents a national average, but for Latino and African-American workers, jobless rates are officially in double digits.

 

In August, unemployment for African-American workers reached 10.6%, with over a half million more workers unable to find work than a year ago. This increase is almost exclusively due to job losses among African-American women. The reported unemployment rate for Latino workers reached eight percent in August. A large number of Latino workers were employed in the construction industry, hard hit by the collapse of the housing market. The number of all single mothers who are unemployed but receive no welfare assistance has grown to over 33%. Many women with children have stopped looking for work, unable to afford child care or transportation costs due to low-paying jobs. Youth unemployment has risen by an alarming 555,000 individuals over the past three months, according to the Labor Department.

 

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