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According to statistics released by the Labor Department on Friday, the official unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in October. Joblessness in the U.S. economy reached its highest level since April 1983. In addressing the lack of job creation as the nation’s gross domestic product grows, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President Richard L. Trumka urged the Obama administration to finance large-scale construction projects as a means to put people back to work. As the nation faces its highest rate of unemployment in more than a quarter century, a new report charts the dramatic demographic shifts in the U.S. labor movement over that same period of time. Released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “The Changing Face of Labor: 1983-2008” looks at how the compositions in union membership in terms of, among other things, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and education reflect trends in the overall economy. Among the report’s key findings is that white males comprised only 38% of union workers in 2008 where twenty-five years ago they accounted for more than half of the unionized workforce. At the same time, women, Latinos, and Asians have made significant gains in representing the overall union ranks. Apart from charting race and gender compositions, the report also found a dramatic decrease in the number of union members among the rapidly declining manufacturing base of the U.S. economy.

GUEST: John Schmitt, Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, lead author of the report

For more information, visit www.cepr.net.