Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/unemployment-hits-26-year-high-despite-economic-growth Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The U.S. Labor Department announced that unemployment jumped to over 10 percent on Friday, the highest it's been since 1983. Jeffrey Brown talks to an economist for more. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JUDY WOODRUFF: The other main story of the day was unemployment hitting double digits for the first time since 1983. The U.S. Labor Department announced the jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent in October, up four-tenths. The economy lost another 190,000 jobs last month.At a congressional hearing, though, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the rate of job losses is slowing.KEITH HALL, commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics: The last three months, the loss has been more moderate than the prior three months are or the prior six months before that. The last three months, job losses averaged 188,000. That is significantly lower than the unprecedented period, six-month period where we lost about 645,000 jobs per month. It's less widespread, the job loss. JUDY WOODRUFF: The commissioner said it might take three years to get back to employment levels before the recession.And President Obama said it underscored the need for extended unemployment benefits. He signed those into law today. On Wall Street, the reaction was subdued. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 17 points, to close at 10,023. The Nasdaq rose seven points, to close at 2,112. For the week, both the Dow and the Nasdaq gained more than 3 percent.Jeffrey Brown takes a closer look at the jobs story. JEFFREY BROWN: And for that, joining me is Lakshman Achuthan, an economist and managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute in New York City.Well, the expectation of hitting 10 percent had been there, but what did today's report reveal about the depths of the problem. Let's start with the troubling news that's still out there. LAKSHMAN ACHUTHAN: Well, this was quite a shocking number, I mean, at 10.2 percent, and I think a lot higher than anybody expected.And when we look at broader measures of unemployment that include discouraged workers or people who have left the work force, the numbers go even higher. They are at 17, 17.5 percent — so, on that score, very, very bad.But the direction, the fact that it is going up, as you mentioned, is not a surprise. That is something that happens always in the early stages of recovery. And this recovery is no different on that score.