Unemployment Rate Falls Again In January

The Labor Department released their unemployment statistics Friday morning, and again, it contained a bit of good news. The official unemployment rate continued its downward trend by falling by 0.1% in January. It now rests at 6.6% -- the lowest unemployment rate since the onset of the recession in the latter stages of the Bush administration. Another bit of good news is that many of the new 113,000 jobs were in the construction and manufacturing sectors of the economy, and those are jobs that usually pay a wage well above the minimum wage.

But as usual, that good news is accompanied by bad news. The 113,000 new jobs was not even enough to account for the growth in the workforce (which grew from 154,937,000 in December to 155,460,000 in January). That workforce growth of 523,000 far outstripped the 113,000 new jobs created. So how did the unemployment rate drop when the workforce grew at a greater rate than the new jobs created?

The number of people officially counted as unemployed also dropped (from 10,351,000 in December to 10,236,000 in January -- drop of 115,000). Part of this is accounted for in the rise of those marginal-attached to the workforce (those who have not looked for work in the last four weeks, and are therefore no longer part of the official unemployment count). Those marginally-attached workers grew from 2,427,000 in December to 2,592,000 in January -- a rise of 155,000 workers.

But this figure added to the new jobs figure still won't account for all the new people in the workforce, so there has to be even more workers that have given up trying to find a job, and are no longer even considered marginally-attached to the workforce. In short, the unemployment rate continues to drop -- but it is due more to workers that have given up and are no longer counted by the government than to any healthy job creation in this poor economy.

Here is a demographic breakdown of the official unemployment rate:
Adult men...............6.2%
Adult women...............5.9%
Teenagers (16-19)...............20.7%
Whites...............5.7%
Blacks...............12.1%
Asians...............4.8%
Hispanics...............8.4%
Less than HS grad...............9.6%
HS graduate...............6.5%
Some college/Assoc. degree...............6.0%
Bachelor's degree or more...............3.2%

And here are the month's statistics.

Size of civilian workforce:

155,460,000

Number of people officially designated as unemployed:

10,236,000

Official unemployment rate:

6.58%

Number of marginally-attached workers (undoubtably an undercount):

2,592,000

Official unemployment + marginally-attached:

12,828,000

A more real unemployment rate:

8.25%

Number of underemployed (part-time workers who can't find full-time work):

7,257,000

Total number of unemployed / underemployed workers:

20,085,000

Unemployment / Underemployment rate:

12.92%