Chart: Unemployment rate by month since January 2008

In March, the number of unemployed persons was little changed at 15.0 million, and the unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent. This is according to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Among the major worker groups, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for adult men (10.0 percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.1 percent), whites (8.8 percent), blacks (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.6 percent) showed little or no change in March. The jobless rate for Asians, which is not seasonally adjusted, was 7.5 percent.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 414,000 over the month to 6.5 million. In March, 44.1 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.9 percent) and the employment–population ratio (58.6 percent) continued to edge up in March.

There were 1.0 million discouraged workers in March, up by 309,000 from a year earlier (not seasonally adjusted). Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

This data is from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation—March 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-0394.