October’s unemployment rate remains essentially unchanged from September’s 6.0 percent rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced last week. The labor market has improved slightly in recent months, posting employment gains of 126,000 jobs in October, and 125,000 in September.

October’s unemployment rate remains essentially unchanged from September’s 6.0 percent rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced last week. The labor market has improved slightly in recent months, posting employment gains of 126,000 jobs in October, and 125,000 in September.

However, employment growth at these levels still fails to meet the amount of available supply coming into the labor market. In October alone, for example, the BLS’s household survey showed an increase in the labor force of 248,000 workers. The Economic Policy Institute says that it would take “150,000 jobs a month ... to prevent the slack in the labor market from worsening.”

At this pace, there will be only 1.8 million jobs created over the next year – which is well below the 2.4 million jobs lost since the beginning of the 2001 recession. Moreover, the labor market has failed to keep up with the growth in the working age population – an additional 2.3 million jobs would be necessary to fill this gap. (For more details see Understanding the Severity of the Current Labor Slump.)

In addition, the employment situation across the country varies widely. Some of the harder-hit states are still seeing unemployment rates above 7 percent, including Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. Since the start of the recession, Massachusetts has lost nearly 5 percent of the jobs in the state; and North and South Carolina have together lost over 200,000 jobs.

Even if the overall labor market strengthens, there will still be significant unemployment across the country for the foreseeable future. Addressing the needs of unemployed workers ought to be a top priority – but the administration seems to be content to highlighting recent strength and ignore the past two and a half years of economic weakness.