The Homa Files

The “Establishment Survey” provided the “headline number” that 146,000 jobs were added … from 133,706,000 employed in Oct. to 133,852,000 Nov.

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And, the  unemployment rate dropped from 7.9% to 7.7%.

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But, the population of working age adults increased by 191,000 – more than the number of added jobs … from 243,983,000 in Oct. to 244,174,000 in Nov.

That should increase the unemployment rate, right?

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More important, the “Household Survey” – the basis of the unemployment rate calculation — reported that 122,000 jobs were LOST… from 143,384,000 employed in Oct. to 143,262,000 Nov.

For sure, that should increase the unemployment rate, right?

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But the unemployment rate didn’t go up, it went down …  because the civilian labor force CONTRACTED by 350,000 … from 155,641,000 in Oct. to 155,291,000 Nov.

That is, 350,000 people stopped looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed..

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Said differently, the labor force participation rate dropped … and is now about 2.2 percentage points lower than it was when Obama took office

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And, consumer confidence dipped, so don’t be surprised if even more people stop looking for jobs.

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Bottom line: Not your classic turnaround … but if enough people stop looking for jobs, we’ll have this unemployment mess fixed in no time.

Ouch !

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This entry was posted on December 7, 2012 at 2:35 pm and is filed under BLS, Economy, Employment - Jobs, Unemployment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.