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An increase in hiring helped lower unemployment rates in 37 U.S. states last month, the latest indication that the job market is slowly healing.

The chances after multiple job losses may be on par with the risks people face from smoking, hypertension and diabetes.

Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped 46,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the highest in four months. The increase represents a rebound from the previous week's sharp drop. Both swings were largely due to technical factors.

In the wake of the controversial 7.8% unemployment rate reported by the U.S. Labor Department earlier this month, Gallup today said that its nonseasonally adjusted rate fell from 7.9% at the end of September to 7.3% in mid-October. That is a new low since Gallup began collecting employment data in January 2010.

The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years and giving President Barack Obama a potential boost with the election a month away.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney expressed empathy for unemployed Americans on Wednesday in what appeared to be an effort to repair the damage from comments he made in a leaked videotape that has sent his poll numbers on a downward slide.

These are anxious days for American workers. Many are underemployed. Others find pay that is simply not keeping up with their expenses.

Hot-job lists may give you an idea of what jobs, on average, employers are trying to fill most. But what really matters is where the jobs are, not what they are.

More than 230,000 jobless Americans will lose their unemployment insurance by this weekend as reductions in the federal program that provides extended benefits to the long-term unemployed take broader effect.

A weak labor market has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.