Employment Rate Drops to 8.3 Percent

February 3rd, 2012

Good news: the unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent in January from 8.5 percent in December 2011, and 243,000 jobs were added. Most importantly, the drop in the unemployment rate was not due to people dropping out of the jobs market, as it has been in prior months—it was due to people actually finding jobs.

The economy does seem to be gaining some momentum, and while it’s still not strong (and we have a huge hole to climb out of), that’s absolutely good news. Hopefully Europe can remain stable enough to allow the economy to strengthen.