US unemployment surged above 10 per cent for the first time in more than a quarter of a century in October, increasing political pressure on the Obama administration.

According to figures revealed on Friday, the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 per cent, its highest since 1983, as companies continued to shed jobs in spite of a return to economic growth. Non-farm payrolls were down 190,0000, slightly more than analysts expected, taking the total of jobs lost since the recession began to 7.3m.

In a televised statement, President Barack Obama called the unemployment rate "a sobering number that underscores the economic challenge ahead".

The US president, who on Friday signed into law measures to extend unemployment benefit and tax credits for homebuyers, said his administration was looking at further measures to boost jobs. These include additional spending on roads and bridges, tax credits for businesses to create jobs, and aggressive export promotion.

Some officials favour a jobs tax credit for companies that hire additional workers. But the dire state of public finances limits the president's options.

Republicans heaped pressure on the administration, with House minority leader John Boehner saying it was "falling short" on jobs and calling on Democrats to abandon what he claimed was "job-killing" health reform.

The rise in US unemployment contrasts sharply with the situation in Europe, including the UK, where the rise in joblessness has been much smaller - albeit from a higher starting point - and unemployment has already stopped rising.

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"The bottom line is that although labour market deterioration is clearly not occurring at the pace suffered late in 2008 and early this year, conditions remain brutal," said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR.

Job losses were widespread across industries, with manufacturing shedding workers in spite of a recent survey that suggested manufacturing groups were starting to hire again.

Moreover, the ranks of the long-term unemployed continued to swell, with 5.6m people now unemployed for more than half a year. Economists worry that these workers' skills will decline, resulting in a rise in structural unemployment of the kind that occurred in Europe in the early 1980s.