The last Labor stat on the unemployment rate is out, and as usual, there are some interesting underlying numbers, also, as reported by Jeff Cox of CNBC.

First, the headline number: overall unemployment rose to 7.9% in October.  It’s important to note that due to problems related to the impact of Sandy, New Jersey and DC data are not included in this estimate; BLS says they estimated these missing data.

The underlying numbers:

• 171,000 new jobs
• the number of those employed part-time who would rather work full-time and those discouraged and so dropped out decreased to 14.6%
• labor force participation rate, which consists of those working or looking for jobs (which includes the above underemployed), edged higher to 63.8%

But it wasn’t all even as “good” as those tepid numbers.  From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• black unemployment rose to 14.3%—nearly twice the national average
• Hispanic unemployment rose to 10%—25% above the national average
• unemployment duration rose to 40.2 weeks
• average work week showed no change
• average hourly earnings for private nonfarm employees dropped by 1¢
• number of unemployed rose by 170,000

Cox notes this, also:

President Barack Obama has touted the more than 4 million jobs created [sic] since the 2009 economic nadir, though the number is much lower—less than 200,000—when compared to the jobs lost.

As someone once said, this isn’t what a recovery looks like.