Friday, February 1, 2013

BREAKING: Unemployment up slightly to 7.9% for January

Fresh electrons from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 7.9% in January, an increase of 0.1%. Total non-farm payrolls increased by 157,000, which is a respectable, if not exciting, number. The broader U6 measurement of unemployment was unchanged at 14.4%.

Chemical manufacturing employment was up by 1,400 jobs to 788,100 positions. College graduate unemployment was down 0.2% to 3.7%.

Press focus, I suspect, will not be on the headline unemployment number, but may focus on the revisions to the November and December payroll numbers, which increased by a total of 127,000 jobs. That's good news, and a little more evidence that the bum GDP number might have been a fluke.  

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20