9.4 Percent Unemployed in May

Via Steve Verdon: the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest unemployment numbers. National unemployment for May was 9.4 percent. 787,000 people lost their jobs in May. That brings the number of unemployed Americans to 14.5 million.

Here is a breakdown of the numbers.

Unemployment rates rose in May for adult men (9.8 percent), adult women (7.5 percent), whites (8.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent). The jobless rates for teenagers (22.7 percent) and blacks (14.9 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 6.7 percent in May, not seasonally adjusted, up from 3.8 percent a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs rose by 732,000 in May to 9.5 million. This group has in-creased by 5.8 million since the start of the recession. (See table A-8.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 268,000 over the month to 3.9 million and has tripled since the start of the recession. (See table A-9.)

Adam Kress of Business Journal paints a more optimistic picture. The national unemployment rate moved higher again in May," Kress writes. "(B)ut the number of job cuts was far lower than in recent months." The reason for less jobs cuts is there are less people to lay off. The question is have employers reached the point when they can no longer lay off people.

Consumer confidence dropped by 2 points in the latest ABC News poll. The public still have doubts about spending there money. That means less new employees in retail, restaurants and manufacturing.

Vice-President Joe Biden told the media the White House plans to "ramp up" stimulus spending.

'We still have a long, long way to go in the road to recovery,' Biden said at the White House. 'And that's why on Monday the president and I will be announcing our plans to ramp up the Recovery Act implementation over the summer.'

I'm curious on what President Barack Obama will announce. The current economic landscape looks bleak. Stay tuned.