The national unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent in October, surprising economists who had been predicting a more modest increase from September's 9.8 percent.

The U.S. economy also continued to shed jobs, with 190,000 lost during the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday.

With the unemployment rate hitting its highest point since April 1983, records indicate this is now the second recession since World War II in which the nation has faced an unemployment rate of more than 10 percent.

The labor bureau reported the largest job losses were in construction (62,000), manufacturing (61,000) and retail trade (40,000).

Christina Romer, chairman of the Presidents Council of Economic Advisors, noted that the economy is losing fewer jobs monthly than it did earlier in the year and that 33,700 jobs were added in the temporary help services sector, which is typically one of the first industries to rebound in a recovery.

But, she added, the unemployment increase of four-tenths of a percentage point occurred despite 3.5 percent growth in the nation's gross domestic product, showing the lag of employment behind productivity.

"Having the unemployment rate reach double-digits is a stark reminder of how much work remains to be done before American families see the job gains and reduced unemployment that they need and deserve," she said.

President Barack Obama yesterday signed legislation extending unemployment benefits by up to another 20 weeks, bringing Pennsylvanians up to 99 weeks of eligibility. The legislation also included tax incentives to homebuyers and tax cuts for struggling businesses.

Currently 35.6 percent of the 15.7 million people who are unemployed have been without a job for more than six months and the median length of unemployment for job seekers is now at 18.7 weeks.

Pennsylvania's unemployment rate and that of the Pittsburgh region have been generally lower than the rest of the nation.

In September, the most recent data available, the statewide unemployment rate was 8.8 percent, one percentage point behind the nation for that month, while the Pittsburgh region's rate was even lower at 8.1 percent. Within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, Fayette County was the only county that suffered higher unemployment than the national rate, at 10.3 percent.

While economists had expected to see the U.S. unemployment rate move over 10 percent in the coming months before finally starting to come down, it was the sharp increase to 10.2 percent in October that Nigel Gault, the chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, found "shocking."

Mr. Gault said he did not think the unemployment rate has hit its peak for this recession.

He expects the unemployment rate to crest at about 10.5 percent with the jobs picture turning around in March when the federal government cranks up its hiring for the U.S. Census.

While there were gains in overtime in manufacturing, despite the overall layoffs, Mr. Gault said that was mostly because employers were able to squeeze more work out of their workers without adding enough overtime to justify adding more employees.

Overall, he said, the trend of fewer jobs lost is an improvement over last spring. Mr. Gault also looked to the increase of temporary jobs as a positive sign, since between January 2008 and July 2009 temporary help services had been shedding an average of 44,000 jobs a month.

The stock market responded to the disappointing job news with an early morning decline but rallied later, erasing the losses and then ultimately ending the day barely above the levels of the opening bell.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.2 percent to 10,023.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.3 percent to 1,069.30, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.3 percent to 2,112.44.

For the week, the Dow and the S&P 500 index added 3.2 percent, while the Nasdaq rose 3.3 percent.

Washington correspondent Daniel Malloy writes the "Pittsburgh On The Potomac" blog exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.