Baby Boomer unemployment grows

April 7, 6:53 AMBaby Boomer ExaminerPaul Briand

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Nationally, the unemployment rate is growing. It stood at 8.5 percent in March. It was 8.1 percent in February.

For Baby Boomers, the news is no better. The number of jobless men and women 45 and older continues to rise, and for older Baby Boomers it's growing at a faster rate, according to the details of a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

The complete picture looks like this, according to the bureau: In March, the number of unemployed persons increased by 694,000 to 13.2 million, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent. Over the past 12 months, the number of  unemployed persons has grown by about 5.3 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 3.4 percentage points. Half of the increase in both the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate occurred in the last four months.

The bureau said that the new  jobless rate for blacks and teenagers has not appreciably from February -- it stood at 13.3 and 21.7 percent respectively. But the rate continues to trend upward for adult men (8.8 percent), adult women (7.7 percent) and Hispanics (11.4 percent).

Drill down deeper into the statistics and you find that Baby Boomer unemployment is growing at less than the national rate, but, in some cases, at a faster pace.

Unemployment is hitting older Boomers and seniors (55 years and older) at a slightly faster rate than other age groups. In February, 5.6 percent of people in this group were unemployed. In March it increased 0.6 percent to 6.2.

By comparison, among younger Baby Boomers (45 to 54) the February unemployment rate was 6.2 percent and grew to 6.6 percent in March, an increase of 0.4 percent.

Among men:
Age Group        February Rate         March Rate
45 to 54            7.0 percent              7.1 percent
55 and older      6.0 percent              6.3 percent    

Among women:
Age Group        February Rate         March Rate
45 to 54            5.3 percent              6.1 percent
55 and older      5.3 percent              5.8 percent   

As for the types of jobs that people of all ages lost, employment in professional and business services had the biggest decline -- 133,000 jobs were lost in this sector from February to March. It's not surprising, given the news of late about car sales and the closing of Circuit City, there were also significant job losses in automobile dealerships and electronics and appliance stores.

The bright spot? Health care employment continued to trend up, though not as strongly as it did through 2008, according to the bureau.