The number of people that stopped looking for work also increased.
This is rather amusing; +114,000 is fewer than the working-age population growth in the household survey (206,000) and yet unemployment decreased.
Huh?
The household survey’s unadjusted numbers, however, show some rather interesting figures, none of which make sense. “Not in labor force” increased by 386,000 while “employed” increased by 775,000 a net change off “unemployed and looking” of well north of a million people!
Once a cheater, always a cheater. And government has been less than honest….always…..
But hey, who cares if people quit looking for work….They don’t count….
Interesting point too in the link….
Another interesting factoid is found in the unemployment duration distribution — it improved on an annualized basis but the shift in the last month is not good at all, with nearly three weeks of duration being added in just the last month to average duration, which strongly implies that those who went to work this month were all recent lay-offs and not those who have been unemployed. This, incidentally, argues directly against Bernanke’s assertion that the unemployment problem has not become structural.
