Yeah. About That Tumbling Drop in the Unemployment Rate

Get past the orgasmic gymnastics in the headline:

Job Creation Surges as Rate Falls to 7.7%

Job creation broke out in February, with the economy creating a net 236,000 new jobs as the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent.

Private job creation stood at a robust 246,000, finally indicating that the economy may be ready to escape the tight growth range in which it has been held since the financial crisis.

…(“ROBUST”?) to the brutal truth:

…A separate unemployment measure that includes workers no longer looking for jobs and those working part-time for economic reasons edged lower to 14.3 percent. At the same time, the labor force participation rate, which measures workers and those looking for jobs,

also fell, to a 32-year low of 63.5 percent, tied with where it stood in August 2012.

Hey, Skippy. Hiring at The Olive Garden or Target might be picking up, but the vast majority of the people are still sitting home, feeling pret-tee hopeless.

4 Responses to “Yeah. About That Tumbling Drop in the Unemployment Rate”

1. Syd B. says:

   March 8, 2013 at 10:49 am

   I try to become more cynical every day, but lately I just can’t keep up.

2. Mr. Bingley says:

   March 8, 2013 at 12:25 pm

   There’s also this, Sis, which seems to me to be a reasonably important point:

   The media’s ecstatic read through of today’s Nonfarm payroll beat can barely end: after all, a print of 236,000 on expectations of 165K, why that has to be great. Well, it is. Until one looks to the number from February 2012, which happens to be 271,000.

   And even the Keynesians will agree that February follows January, which in 2013 was a downward revised 119,000. January 2012? 311,000. Which in turn happened just as Europe was fixed again – after all who can forget the LTRO euphoria (and what happened after).

   In other words, the first two months of 2012 saw a 582,000 increase in non-farm payrolls. In 2013: 355,000. But something else happened between February 29, 2012 and February 28, 2012… Oh yes, the US government issued some $1,198,397,883,967.30 in debt. Oh, and the Fed monetized about half of this amount, and virtually all of the Treasurys issued to the right of the ZIRP period (i.e., risky debt).

   To summarize: $1.2 trillion in debt buys the US…. 61% of the jobs created a year ago. But at least the Dow Jones is at an all time high.

   Who else can hardly contain their excitement at what the jobs number a year from today will reveal that yet another $1.2 trillion in debt will do to the US job market…

3. TMI says:

   March 8, 2013 at 2:32 pm

   And we’ll have to wait for the revision to find out that job gains were actually lower, unexpectedly.
   .

4. Friday afternoon bad news dump: Record 89,304,000 Americans ‘Not in Labor Force’ | Fausta's Blog says:

   March 8, 2013 at 4:20 pm

   […] number of Americans not in the labor force increased by 296,000 between January and February, which means that the labor force participation rate, which measures workers and those looking for jobs, also […]