While the unemployment rate dropped slightly to 10.4 percent in October there was very little movement in job growth in the private sector. Figires from the state Employment Security Commission (ESC) show state government jobs increased 1.5 percent from September to October. There also was a boost in local government employment by .5 percent.
At the same time, the private sector experienced a growth of less than .1 percent in jobs during that same period. That's a creation of 5,730 jobs in one month. At that rate it would take nearly five years to get back over 306.000 jobs lost since February of 2008. The nonfarm labor force then peaked at 4,177,400. In October this year nonfarm jobs numbered 3,871,300.