The unemployment rate dropped from 8.9 to 8.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this morning. The labor force participation rate held steady, indicating that the pool of millions of Americans who have grown too discouraged to seek work have not begun to return to the job market.
"It's a good report, a little better than expected, especially the dip in the unemployment rate for the right reasons," said Stuart Hoffman, an economist at PNC Financial Group. "More people are finding work. It's not just people disappearing in the statistical cracks," he said.
In January, for instance, the unemployment rate fell from 9.4 to 9 percent -- but only 36,000 new jobs were created. "What's been missing in the economy is job growth: well, we've now got two months of job growth back to back of over 200,000 jobs in the private sector," Hoffman said.
Some economists suspect that during the recession, the size of the American labor force shrank, as discouraged job seekers simply gave up looking for work and disappeared from government statistics. The current labor force measurements, economists say, may be more representative of the actual U.S. workforce.
"The labor force participation rate has stabilized," said Wells Fargo economist John Silvia. "We're looking at a labor force now that's a fair assessment of people actually in the labor force -- I think those people have just gone out of the system. I think we're looking at a new labor force participation rate, and a real distinction in terms of employment growth by sectors."
But other economists who follow the labor force participation rate closely caution that it's too early to say whether the millions of Americans who dropped out of the labor force are gone for good.
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