U.S. jobless rate declines to 5.7 percent

WASHINGTON–The nation’s jobless rate dipped to 5.7 percent in January as restaurants, bars, department stores, and other retailers laid off fewer temporary workers than they usually do after the winter holidays, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The government’s monthly tally showed payroll employment increased by 143,000 last month, nearly erasing the previous month’s job loss of 156,000. It was the biggest gain in 26 months.
Retailers hired fewer temporary workers than normal in December because they did not expect a big increase in holiday sales. On a seasonally adjusted basis, that showed up as an employment decline.
“Excluding the seasonal increase would leave an actual employment gain of 40,000 to 50,000, well below the level that would accompany a robust recovery”, said chief economist Bill Cheney at John Hancock Financial Services.
“We’re still mired in a jobless recovery,” said Cheney. “Unless we’re missing something, the unemployment rate will be shooting back up again very soon.”
The U.S. economy has shed 1.7 million jobs since the most recent recession began in March 2001.
Last month’s decline in the jobless rate, from a post-recession high of 6 percent in December, returned the index to the same narrow range it occupied during most of 2002. Although many economists believe a recovery began in late 2001, the unemployment rate never fell below 5.5 percent last year.
The jobless rate for blacks dropped to 10.3 percent in January from 11.2 percent the previous month; it dipped to 7.8 percent from 7.9 percent for Latinos. Unemployment among whites held steady at 5.1 percent. But the Labor Department said a change in its survey methodology made the month-to-month comparisons within ethnic categories less significant.