Good morning. Hope you’re enjoying your coffee, I’m enjoying mine.

If you’re at work, do me a favor. Rub the top of your press board desk, listen to the light hum of those florescent tubes above your head, meditate on the buzz of your computer monitor (this is, of course, for those lucky enough to work indoors and in front of a computer). Savor this moment, be thankful for it.

Why? Cause the Labor Department just announced that the unemployment rate hit 6.1 percent last month. The highest rate since 2003.

All told, that means 9.4 million people out of work right now, 592,000 more than last month.

More ominously, the rate of long term unemployed (people who have been out of work for more than 27 months) rose by 163,000 last month, bringing the total to 1.8 million.

And even more ominously, there’s another 1.6 million people out there who can’t find work but aren’t considered unemployed cause they haven’t searched for a job in the last 4 weeks. (Meaning the real number of unemployed people is about 11 million.) Why? Well, maybe cause they know there ain’t nothin out there for them. There’s a phrase for that: “discouraged worker.” A discouraged worker is someone who expressly states they have not looked for work recently because they don’t believe that are any jobs out there for them. Of the 1.6 million people not counted as unemployed 381,000 were discouraged workers.

The lesson here: don’t hate your job, love that you have one.