The Department of Labor has released the unemployment numbers for November, and the top-line data shows a "surprising drop" in unemployment, as the AP put it.  The total number of unemployed dropped slightly to 15.4 million, and the unemployment rate is now at 10.0 percent (charts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics):

If the slight drop in the unemployment rate is good news, some of the internal data remains grim.  5.9 million of the 15.4 million unemployed are "long term unemployed"--that is, they have been out of work for at least 27 weeks.  That's up 293,000 over October's statistics.  And the number of marginally attached workers is now at 2.3 million.  Marginally attached workers are people who had looked for work in the last year, but not in the last 4 weeks.  They are not counted in the unemployment rate.  And 861,000 of the marginally attached workers qualify as "discouraged workers"--individuals who are not currently looking for work because they don't believe there are any jobs.

Read the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics here.