Monday, December 9, 2013

The November Jobs Report: Not as Rosy as Headlines Imply

  • Federal, state and local governments hired a net additional 338,000 workers in November, equaling 41% of the total of 818,000 net additional jobs created in the United States during the month.
  • At the same time, the unemployment rate for government workers fell from 4.4 percent in October to 3.2 percent in November. (The overall national unemployment rate fell from 7.3 percent to 7.0  percent.)
  • The Participation Rate (The labor force as a percent of the civilian noninstitutional population) rose 0.2 to 63.0%. 
  • In the last year last year 2,418,000 have left the labor force. 
  • Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 9%.