The Labor Department released its monthly unemployment statistics on Friday. It showed that the economy produced a whopping 678,000 jobs in February. That was enough to drop the unemployment rate down by 0.2 points -- to 3.8%. This was in spite of a 304,000 growth in the size of the civilian labor force. Here are the relevant statistics for February:
SIZE OF CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:
163,991,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
6,270,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
3.8%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:
Adult men...............3.5%
Adult women...............3.6%
Teens (16-19)...............10.3%
White...............3.3%
Black...............6.6%
Asian...............3.1%
Hispanic...............4.4%
Less than HS diploma...............4.3%
HS graduate...............4.5%
Some college...............3.8%
Bachelor's deg. or more...............2.2%
NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (unemployed but not counted):
1,471,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED:
7,741,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
4.72%
