The Labor Department has released unemployment figures for May and the prevailing opinion seems to be that the numbers are good in that they aren't as bad as they could be.  But they are bad.  Unemployment is now over 9 percent for the first time in a quarter century.  Another 345,000 jobs were lost last month, bringing unemployment to 9.4%.  What's the good news? Economists had expected the May job loss to be much higher--525,000 according to the Washington Post's Neil Irwin.  Irwin writes:

The data was welcome news, despite the rising jobless rate, because it suggested the furious pace of job losses -- which peaked at 741,000 jobs lost in January -- is finally easing. It is the strongest evidence yet that the economy's downdraft of the winter has given way to a more steady, measured decline.

Measured decline is still decline, of course.  And the figures are a little more daunting when you compare them on a year-by-year basis.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment is now 3.9 percentage points higher than May of 2008. Take a look at the larger trend.

Some other long-term numbers stand out from this month's report.  The number of Americans marginally attached to the labor force is now at 2.2 million--nearly 800,000 more than a year ago (read our post: Rise of Discouraged Workers).  And the number of "long-term unemployed"--those people who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more--is now at 3.9 million.  That's triple what it was at the beginning of the recession.

Read the BLS's report here.