Unemployment Rate For January Drops Slightly To 4.3%

 

The Labor Department released its unemployment report for January on February 11th (blaming the delay on the government shutdown). It showed the economy produced about 130,000 new jobs. That's better than the last few months, but still short of what is expected in a healthy economy. It was good enough though to reduce the unemployment rate to 4.3% for the month.

Here are the relevant statistics for January:

SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:

171,882,000

OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:

7,362,000

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

4.3%

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:

Adult men...............3.8%

Adult women...............4.0%

Teens (16-19)...............13.6%

Whites...............3.7%

Blacks...............7.2%

Asians...............4.1%

Hispanics...............4.7%

No HS diploma...............5.2%

HS graduate...............4.5%

Some college...............3.6%

Bachelor's deg. or more...............2.9%

NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (unemployed but not counted):

1,671,000

MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS (official + marginally-attached):

9,033,000

MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:

5.26%