U.S. unemployment drops to three-year low
U.S. unemployment drops to three-year low
The economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January and the unemployment rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.3 percent, providing some measure of comfort for President Barack Obama who faces re-election in November, Reuters reported.
Nonfarm payrolls jumped by 243,000, the Labor Department said this morning, as factory jobs grew by the most in a year. The gain in overall employment was the largest since April and outpaced economists’ expectations for a rise of only 150,000.
The report pointed to underlying strength in the economy, despite expectations that growth will slow in the first quarter. Economists had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 8.5 percent. The rate is the lowest since February 2009 and has dropped 0.8 percentage point since August.
The figures did not count as unemployed some 2.8 million persons who were “marginally attached” to the labor force, those people who wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the past 12 months, but had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in January, little different from a year earlier.
The economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January and the unemployment rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.3 percent, providing some measure of comfort for President Barack Obama who faces re-election in November, Reuters reported.
Nonfarm payrolls jumped by 243,000, the Labor Department said this morning, as factory jobs grew by the most in a year. The gain in overall employment was the largest since April and outpaced economists’ expectations for a rise of only 150,000.
The report pointed to underlying strength in the economy, despite expectations that growth will slow in the first quarter. Economists had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 8.5 percent. The rate is the lowest since February 2009 and has dropped 0.8 percentage point since August.
The figures did not count as unemployed some 2.8 million persons who were “marginally attached” to the labor force, those people who wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the past 12 months, but had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in January, little different from a year earlier.
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