The Labor Department has released its statistics for the month of January. They report that 304,000 jobs were created in January. That sounds like a lot, but it wasn't enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising again -- from 3.9% in December to 4.0% in January. Even though the civilian work force dropped by about 11,000, there were 241,000 more unemployed workers in January than in December.
Here are the relevant statistics for January:
SIZE OF CIVILIAN WORK FORCE:
163,229,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
6,535,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
4.0%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:
Adult men...............3.7%
Adult women...............3.6%
Teenagers (16-19)...............12.9%
Whites...............3.5%
Blacks...............6.8%
Hispanics...............4.9%
Asians...............3.1%
Less than HS grad...............5.7%
HS graduate...............3.8%
Some college...............3.4%
Bachelor's deg. or more...............2.4%
NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (Unemployed, but no longer included in official count):
1,614,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
8,149,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
4.99%
