January Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on employment and unemployment for January (pdf summary available). Highlights of the report: 

Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate dropped significantly for a second consecutive month, to 9.0% in January.  The unemployment rate was 9.4% in December and 9.8% in November. 

• January marks the 21^st consecutive month that the unemployment rate has been at or above 9.0%—the next longest time the unemployment rate was 9.0% or higher (since records began in 1948) was for 19 months beginning in 1982.

The number of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) reversed course and edged down slightly to 6.2 million in January (from 6.4 million in December), representing 43.8% of the unemployed.

There were 13.9 million unemployed persons in January, down from 14.5 million in December. 

Payroll Employment

Total non-farm payroll employment edged up by 36,000 in January, following gains of 121,000 in December (revised upwards from 103,000) and 93,000 in November (revised upwards from 71,000).  

• Private sector employment rose by 50,000 while government employment fell by 14,000.
• The largest employment gains came from manufacturing (+49,000) and retail trade (+28,000).
• The largest employment losses occurred in construction (-32,000) and transportation and warehousing (-38,000)
• The average workweek declined by 0.1 hour to 34.2 hours for all private nonfarm employees.