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The statistics for those collecting unemployment insurance benefits are in for the month of December, and the news is about as disheartening as I have come to expect from these updates. Turns out that the U.S. economy shed more jobs than was forecasted for the last month of the year, even though the overall national unemployment rate is holding more or less steady. This is reflective of the ridiculously slow economic recovery keeping employers from being able to hire people back at the same rate as before the recession. Also, the stable overall rate of unemployment is intensely deceptive, says experts: it is not reflective of either those people who have given up on finding a job and removed themselves from the self-reported labor force, nor those people who are underemployed and are searching for either a better job or a full-time position instead of a part-time one.

According to the federal Labor Department, employers cut some eighty-five thousand jobs last month. Although the national unemployment rate has held steady at about ten percent for two months, now, it does not include the tremendous amount of underemployed workers. It is believed that including these people in the figures would bump the numbers up to about seventeen point three percent. The highest figure on record of unemployment with underemployment factored in is seventeen point four. So the country is currently just a breath away from hitting its record, which is not good news at all.

The December numbers were something of a coup de grace in the terrible year in the U.S. labor market that was 2009. Overall, American employers eliminated over four million jobs last year, with the country’s unemployment rate averaging nine point three percent. Compare that to a drop of five point eight percent in 2008, and four point six percent in 2007. Overall, the economy has shed some eight million jobs since the recession officially began in December 2007. There is currently ample proof that this year might not be anything of an improvement. A statement from the Federal Reserve released a few weeks ago claimed that unemployment could be expected to decline “only gradually” with comparison to the year before. Private analysts have speculated that unemployment will remain above nine percent nationally all year long.