Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

So many different numbers are being tossed about on the subject of unemployment; if you spend even a day trying to sort them out you can wind up feeling like Alice in Wonderland; only this time she’s tumbled down into an unemployment line where nothing makes sense.

Here is the White House crew talking about all the jobs that they’ve “created or saved” with the stimulus. The economy is getting better, but joblessness is getting worse. Initial benefits claims are up, then they are down. The Labor Department is issuing a river of reports on jobs lost, gained, outsourced, insourced, retro-fitted, repainted, fertilized, pruned, poached in a white wine sauce, you name it. Cue the Mad Hatter. It’s no wonder whacky tea parties are breaking out across the land.

Take it easy. Having traveled at great peril through the looking glass into the surreal land of economists, I have emerged with the grail; the only number you really need to know.

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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

The nation's unemployment rate rose above 10% for the first time since 1983 in October, a much worse jump than expected as employers continued to trim jobs from payrolls.

The reading is a sign of the continued weakness in the labor market - even though the economy grew in the third quarter following the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression.

The Labor Dept. said this morning that unemployment rate spiked to 10.2% last month, up from 9.8% in September. That’s the highest rate since April 1983.

There was also a net loss of 190,000 jobs in October. And while that’s worse than what economists were expecting and is still a big number – it is an improvement from the 741,000 jobs we lost in January.

The largest losses last month were in the construction, manufacturing and retail sectors.

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Chris Isidore
CNNMoney.com Senior Writer

The nation's unemployment rate rose above 10% for the first time since 1983 in October, a much worse jump than expected as employers continued to trim jobs from payrolls.

The reading, reported by the government Friday, is a sign of the continued weakness in the labor market even though the economy grew in the third quarter following the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression.

The government reported that the unemployment rate spiked to 10.2%, up from 9.8% in September. It is the highest that this rate has been since April 1983. Economists had forecast an increase to 9.9%.

There was also a net loss of 190,000 jobs in October, according to the Labor Department, an improvement from a revised estimate of 219,000 job losses in September. However, economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of only 175,000 jobs in October. This was the 22nd straight month of job losses.

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CNNMoney

The Obama administration says the Recovery Act created or saved 640,000 jobs through September but the unemployment rate is still very high through out the nation. View a state-by-state breakdown.

Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?". Last week, we discussed A short history of jobs This time, we'll look at riots, massacres and the transactional nature of work. To learn more about the book, you should follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

Protesters in the United Kingdom gathered outside an oil refinery this summer, after hundreds of striking workers were laid off.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

In today's civilization, it's virtually impossible to survive without money. One-hundred-and-fifty centuries ago, if a Natufian wanted to build a hut, he'd find an empty spot of land and dig. But, today, if an American wants to build a house (or even a hut), land has to be bought. If you want to live inside a structure, a transaction of some sort has to take place and that requires money.

It is the transactional nature of a job that creates its complexity in terms of the rest of society. If you want to work for someone else (and have them pay you), you have to convince them that employing you will meet their needs. If you're self-employed, you have to convince prospective clients and customers that hiring you will meet their needs.

In other words, getting a job or getting a gig requires some level of marketing to make someone aware you're there to do the job and some level of sales to convince them you're the right person for the job.

Over the centuries, the nature of work evolved to eventually result in the world of employment we've all come to know and love. There's now always someone buying work and someone else selling it.

The transactional nature of work has also led to all sorts of power imbalances. When there's too much work and not enough workers, it's a seller's market and the workers have more power over what jobs they accept and at what pay level.

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Even if the stock market broke the 10,000 point barrier a few weeks ago, many Americans can't see what all the enthusiasm is about.

Julian E. Zelizer
CNN

When the stock market broke the 10,000 point barrier a few weeks ago, many investors celebrated. Economists have started to talk about the end of the "Great Recession." But many Americans can't see what all the enthusiasm is about.

National unemployment rates remain extraordinarily high, having reached almost 10 percent. According to the Congressional Budget Office, unemployment will climb to 10.2 percent in 2010 before falling to around 9.1 percent the following year.

Within particular states, the situation is dire. In Massachusetts, unemployment rates have reached a level not seen since 1976. Michigan's unemployment rate is at a little over 15 percent. State budgets, according to a report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, are still devastated by rapidly declining tax revenue. According to its study, collections by states fell by 16.6 percent from April to June.

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President Barack Obama signs the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act earlier this year.

Dana Goldstein
The Daily Beast

It was sold as the silver lining of the recession: With the national unemployment rate inching toward 10 percent—and the bloodletting especially severe in testosterone-fueled industries like finance and manufacturing—women were supposedly doing dandy. Federal stimulus dollars protected typically female jobs in nursing and teaching. The New York Times trumpeted that laid-off dads were picking up more chores around the house while “opt-out” moms headed back to the office, saving their families from financial destitution. For the first time in American history, women accounted for 49 percent of the labor force. Within the next few weeks, it is likely that more than half of all workers will have two X chromosomes, a milestone that would have been unimaginable to previous generations.

It’s true that men account for four-fifths of all layoffs since the downturn began nearly two years ago. But scratch the statistical surface and you’ll find that American women are hardly sailing through the economic storm. A new report by California's first lady, Maria Shriver, and the Washington-based Center for American Progress contains some encouraging news on shifting attitudes about gender. It finds that both men and women are enthusiastic about increased gender diversity in the workplace, and men are taking on more responsibility at home. But it also finds that most American women remain mired in unstable jobs with few employee benefits.

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Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

During the second George Bush presidency, when the economy started its long trip over the falls in a barrel, there was a joke: “The President says he’s creating jobs and I know it must be true. I’ve got three of them!”

I don’t know who came up with that one, but it could have been any of the millions of people who were underemployed. Underemployment is the evil twin of unemployment. Many of the underemployed have jobs, but often for far fewer hours a week than they might want or at much lower skill and pay levels than they have earned. We’ve all heard the chilling, albeit apocryphal, tales of accountants waiting tables, and doctors driving cabs. (Although trust me, the cabbie I had last week was no brain surgeon.) People who have given up looking for work also swell the ranks of the underemployed.

And the underemployment rate is staggering: 17 percent last month. It has soared like an Iranian test missile over the past two years, and is now much worse than it was the last time the economy tanked. The insidious effects are touching virtually every sector of the economy in ways that can sometimes be even worse than straight joblessness.

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Editor's Note: This article begins our new series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in October. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?". The second section consists of recommendations about what we need to do as a country to save jobs. The third, final section is a series of hands-on tips and techniques, things real people and real companies can do right now to help keep and create jobs - without waiting for anyone in Washington to get it right. To learn more about the book, follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

Job. Such a simple word has such a profound meaning for everyone in our society. Three simple letters reflect where we spend much of our time as adults, how well we can support ourselves and our families, and even our standing in our communities.

When we're making a living, or having an occupation, a trade, a career, a profession, a calling, a vocation, and a livelihood, we're also talking about jobs. But what exactly is a job? Why do jobs exist? How are they created? How are they lost? And, most importantly, how can we save them?

You need to understand why a job exists.

Let's talk for a minute about what, exactly, a job is. Fundamentally, a job is a trade of time, skill, and spirit for something of value, usually money. You and I put in a good work week and we expect to get paid.

But who pays for the jobs? To answer that question (and it's a very important question), you need to understand why a job exists. At its root, a job exists because somebody needs something done and either can't, or won't - or doesn't want to - do it himself.

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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

The first of this week’s big employment reports is out and the numbers are a bit of a disappointment.

Payroll-processing firm ADP says private-sector employers cut 254,000 jobs in September, down from a revised 277,000 in August. But that is the smallest monthly total since July 2008, even though it’s worse than the 200,000 loss economists had forecast.

Large businesses, those with 500 or more workers, let 61,000 workers go in September. Medium-sized businesses, with between 50 and 499 workers, shed 93,000 jobs. And small businesses, those with less than 50 workers, reduced payrolls by 100,000.

Small businesses held will continue to shed more workers than larger and medium-sized firms, ADP said. That's because large businesses started shrinking payrolls earlier and therefore will recover sooner.

The report is seen as a precursor to Friday's closely-watched monthly jobs report from the Labor Dept.

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