Unemployment Rate Drops - But It's Not Good News

According to the newest report by the Labor Department, the unemployment rate has dropped by 0.1% -- from 7.7% in February to 7.6% in March. But while that should be good news, in this instance it's not. That's because there were only about 88,000 new jobs created in March -- just a little more than half the number of jobs needed to just take care of new workers entering the job market each month.

The real reason the unemployment rate dropped last month was not because a bunch of people found new jobs, but because the civilian workforce shrank by about 496,000 workers (from 155,524,000 to 155,028,000). Some will be retirees and people going back to school, but most of them are probably people who have given up hope of finding a job and did not look for work in the last 4 weeks (and therefore are no longer counted as a part of the civilian workforce). Without this huge number of people dropping out of the workforce, the unemployment rate would have climbed slightly for March (most likely resting at about 7.8%).

I wish I could say that there's a chance that the job creation numbers will rebound this month, but I really don't think they will. The March numbers only felt a little bit of the new "austerity" imposed on the economy by Republicans through the drastic sequestration cuts. Those cuts will affect the economy much more in April (and the coming months) -- reducing demand for goods and services, and the need for businesses to hire new workers.

Here are the figures for March:

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN
Adult men...............6.9%
Adult women...............7.0%
Teenagers...............24.2%
Whites...............6.7%
Blacks...............13.3%
Hispanics...............9.2%
Asians...............5.0%

No high school diploma...............11.1%
graduated high school...............7.6%
Associates Degree (or some college)...............6.4%
Bachelors Degree or more...............3.8%

Total civilian workforce:

155,028,000

Number of workers counted by government as unemployed:

11,742,000

Official government unemployment rate:

7.6%

Workers marginally-attached to the workforce, and not counted as a part of civilian workforce (and an obvious undercount):

2,326,000

Total unemployed (officially unemployed + marginally-attached):

14,068,000

Real unemployment rate:

9.1%

Number of people working part-time because they can't find full-time work:

7,638,000

Real unemployed + part-timers who want full-time work:

21,706,000

Percentage of workers unable to find a full-time job:

14.0%