The labor force shed 190,000 jobs, far less than a month ago, when the economy lost 263,000 jobs and pushed the September unemployment rate to 9.8 percent.

For October, economists had predicted a loss of 175,000 jobs and a bump in the unemployment rate to 9.9 percent.

The Labor Department said the total number of unemployed has risen by 8.2 million since the recession began in December 2007.

The construction sector lost 62,000 jobs in October, while manufacturing lost 61,000. Retail gave up 40,000 jobs, while healthcare added 29,000.

Healthcare has consistently bucked the trend, adding 597,000 jobs during the recession.

In October, 9.3 million workers were stuck in part-time jobs for economic reasons -- 100,000 more than a month ago. About 2.4 million were "marginally attached to the labor force," meaning they had looked for work in the past 12 months and found none.

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