Jobless report best in 3 years
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The monthly unemployment report contained undeniably good news Friday, but with bad statistics dappled in like dandelions in a lawn.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment was down to 8.3 percent for January from 8.5 percent in December, the lowest it has been since February 2009. Looking deeper into the report showed that the labor force participation rate -- a measure of how many people over 16 are either working or want to have a job -- was 63.7 percent, the lowest it has been since May 1983.
Wall Street reacted favorably to the employment news. The Dow Jones industrial average added 156.82 points, or 1.21 percent, to close at 12,862.23. The Nasdaq gained 45.98 points, a rise of 1.61 percent, to close at 2,905.66. And the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 19.36 points, or 1.46 percent, to close at 1,344.90.
The report was better than economists had predicted. The number of jobs, based on a survey of employers, showed a net gain of 243,000. It would have been even higher except that governments cut 14,000 jobs, 11,000 of them in local government including 9,600 people who work in public education.
The signs that the economy is on its way back were in the report.
Nigel Gault, an economist with IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., called it a "Super Report," partially because he is just outside of Boston and this weekend everything there has a "Super" theme.
He said the drop in the unemployment rate was due more to people actually finding jobs than dropping out of the labor market.
Still, a disturbing sign in the report was how people who have been unemployed for longer than six months rose from December to make up 42.9 percent of the unemployed.
First Published February 4, 2012 12:00 am
