Soaring Jobless Rate Offers Latest Sign of Weakened Economy

JIM LEHRER:

Jeffrey Brown has our unemployment coverage.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Not only did we learn today that unemployment rose sharply in October, the Labor Department's revisions also showed that job losses have been on a very steep slide since the summer, some 650,000 jobs lost since August.

To fill in the picture, we turn to Lisa Lynch, dean of the Heller School at Brandeis University and a former chief economist at the Department of Labor. She serves on the board of directors of the Boston Federal Reserve.

And Nariman Behravesh, chief economist of IHS Global Insight, an economic forecasting and research firm, and author of a new book, "Spin-Free Economics."

Well, Lisa Lynch, the October losses were not only deep, but they were quite broad throughout the economy, right?

LISA LYNCH, Brandeis University:

Absolutely. We saw job losses in manufacturing, construction, retail, and wholesale trade, financial services, really across the board.

The only bright spots in terms of employment gains in today's report was in the health care sector, where we saw an increase of about 26,000 jobs. A little bit of an increase in the mining sector. And then government, although most of that was concentrated in local government, and I don't think we're going to see those kinds of job gains going forward.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Nariman Behravesh, the Labor Department as we said also revised the last couple of months. Now, what does that tell us about — about the depths of the problem that we're in?

NARIMAN BEHRAVESH, Economist, Global Insight:

Well, it does suggest that this recession is going to be very, very deep. And, in fact, we probably have lost about 1.2 million jobs since the beginning of the year. And that's big.

And we'll probably lose at least another million or so jobs before this is done. So, unfortunately, as Lisa was saying, this is big. It's bad. It's broad-based. And, unfortunately, it's going to get worse before it gets better.