RJ and Makay

The Labor Department stated today that the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent last month. The jobless rate now tops 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1930s.

The good news is that the Financial and Insurance sectors lost only 1000 jobs overall last month, and has a lower unemployment rate—down to 6.3% from 6.7% in August.

Dynamic changes in employment also show a small gain: Gross job gains are listed as 359,000 in the 4^th quarter 2009 or up 26,000 from the 1^st quarter 2009.