Last month the BLS revised their November 2009 unemployment number from a loss of 11,000 jobs to a gain of 4,000. That’s the first monthly gain in two years.

But December’s data came in showing job losses of 85,000, with the official unemployment rate holding steady at 10%. The underemployment rate moved up slightly, from 17.2% in Nov. to 17.3% in Dec. The most disturbing trend I’m seeing in the numbers is the long-term unemployed, those people out of work for more than 27 weeks. This group of out of work Americans now accounts for 40% of all unemployed people , or 6.1 million people. This group has grown by 135% in the last 12 months. Getting these long-term unemployed back to work is going to take a very long time.

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