1). What's going on with the rate of unemployment in the U.S. today?

The monthly "household survey" of unemployment conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor for  is discussed athttp://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.

You might also want to look at the tables reachable by clicking on links at at the bottom of the page, many of which are very interesting.  Table A  (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm (Links to an external site.)) gives basic overall unemployment breakdowns by race/ethnicity, education level, age, etc.  Table A15 shows what the figures look like if you add in people who aren't officially unemployed (groups like the 800,000estimated "discouraged workers" who haven't looked for a job in the past 30 days and say the reason is that they don't think they can get a job right now and the 8 million people who are wolerking part-time but wish they were working full time)

Question:  How is the unemployment problem changing, if at all, over the last year, and over the past few months?  Any signs of hope?  (reductions in unemployment in certain sectors or certain areas, etc?)  Basically you can feel free to discuss any dimension of the unemployment issues in the U.S. that you care to.  Information on trends and issues is readily available in the press.)

Long-term unemployment is the most damaging type of unemployment, as people lose money and find it more and more difficult to be re-hired the longer they are left without jobs - any information on how many people are still suffering from long-term unemployment (six months or more?  Or a year or more?

Another problem is the large number of "involuntarily part-time" workers.  These are people who say they only have a part-time job but wanted a full-time job.  Is that number falling or rising?

Feel free to draw on other sources for info as to this issue, as long as you cite them.

Oddly, sometimes when the economy turns up the number of "discouraged workers" drops but the unemployment rate increases.  That's because people who want a job but haven't looked in the past 30 days because they thought no one would hire them right now ("discouraged workers") aren't counted as unemployed.   (You have to search to be considered unemployed.)  When discouraged workers hear good news about the economy they start to search - so the first effect as the the number of "unemployed" rises and the unemployment rate rises.  Has that happened lately?

Or:  How's the rate in San Antonio?  Any aspect of the issue (even unemployment in another country) you wish to talk about is okay.