Unemployment rate holds at 9.7 percent

Economists had expected the rate to climb to 9.8 percent.

The Labor Department said 36,000 jobs were lost in the month, with the construction sector losing 64,000, close to its average decline of the past six months. But the number of manufacturing and retail jobs were unchanged in the month, while temporary jobs rose by 48,000, creating a total addition of 284,000 temporary jobs since September 2009, the report said.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.1 percent in the month to $22.46. The average work week also increased 0.1 percent to 33.8 hours.

The department said 14.9 million persons were unemployed and 2.5 million were "marginally attached" to the workforce, uncounted as unemployed because they had not looked for a job in the past four weeks.

"Counting workers compelled to work part time for lack of full-time opportunities and discouraged workers that have quit looking, the unemployment rate rose to 16.8 percent," University of Maryland professor of economics Peter Morici said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International.