The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment rate for October 2012 on Friday, November 2, 2012. 
The unemployment rate and number of unemployed persons remained essentially unchanged at 7.9% and 12.3 million. The number of long term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks or more) was 5.0 million which also remained essentially unchanged and accounts for 40.6% of the unemployed.
Employment did rise in professional and business services as well as healthcare and retail trade.
Hurricane Sandy has been said to have had no effect on the rates for October due to the data being collected before the storm.
To read more on this data please visit the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s website at www.bls.gov.