The  unemployment rate in remained steady at 5.5% in March.  The graph below shows the steady decline over the past year, falling from  6.6% one year ago.  The number of long-term unemployed also stayed constant in March. However, this number decreased by 1.1 million over the past year.

Jobs growth did slow in March, with just 126,000 new jobs. This is down from an average of 269,000 new jobs per month over the past twelve months.

There is at least one very good economics lesson in this report:  Employment in mining actually fell by 11,000 jobs in March.  The BLS report states that the employment declines "were concentrated in support activities for mining, which includes support for oil and gas extraction."  Thus the lost jobs are a direct result of the falling gasoline prices over the first few months of this year. 

The BLS released yet another positive jobs report this morning.  Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 295,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate dropped to just 5.5% - the lowest level since May 2008. 

The question going forward is now: how close are we to the natural rate of unemployment?  Many economists believe this is around 5.5 percent.

The latest jobs report from the BLS offers a great teaching lesson about how the unemployment rate is calculated.  Here's why: it is one of the best jobs reports we've had in a long time even though the unemployment rate actually went up.

First, notice the 257,000 new jobs created in January.  As the graph below shows, we are now working on almost 5 years straight of positive jobs growth, with 3.2 million new jobs in the past twelve months alone.

The second piece of good news is the increase in the labor force participation rate (LFPR) to 62.9 percent.  And while labor force participation is still at historically low levels (see graph below), it seems possible that the downward trend has finally reversed as the economy is picking up steam.

With all this good news, why did the unemployment rate actually rise to 5.7% in January?  It rose because it is calculated as the portion of the labor force that is unemployed.  The labor force grew by over one million people in January.  And while about one-fourth (257,000) of these found jobs, the others did not, and so the unemployment rate increased.

This tick up in the unemployment rate should not be seen as bad news.  In the long run, we want the economy to be producing lots of jobs - jobs that draw people back into the labor force from disability, continued education, and perhaps even retirement.

The U.S. economy added 321,000 new jobs in november, extending the streak of positive jobs growth to fifty straight months.  So far in 2014, nonfarm employment has grown by 2.65 million jobs or 221,000 jobs per month.

As they are studying for finals, students might like to know which subjects relate to industries that have recently experienced significant jobs growth.  For example, 86,000 jobs were added in professional and business services in November alone, while the previous 12 month average was 57,000 jobs per month. Digging further, there were 16,000 in accounting and bookkeeping alone. So any students struggling to find incentives to study for accounting exams need just consider the job prospects waiting for them.  Another career path to consider might be health care, which added 37,200 jobs in November.

Unfortunately, all this jobs growth did not reduce the unemployment rate, which remained steady at 5.8 percent.

This morning, the BLS released the Employment Situation report for October and the news is very good.  The unemployment rate is now back to 5.8% for the first time since July 2008. 

In addition, there were 214,000 new jobs added in October.  The economy has added more thatn 200,000 jobs per month for nine straight months now.  In 2014, we are averaging 229,000 new jobs per month.  That is real recovery.

I've blogged about this before (see here), but the labor force participation rate (LFPR) just keeps falling.  Nobody sees this as positive news - more and more U.S. workers are sitting on the sidelines.  The latest jobs report brought the good news of a falling unemployment rate, but part of this is because workers are leaving the labor force.  As the graph below shows, the overall LFPR in the U.S. is now down to 62.7 percent, which is the lowest it has been since many women entered the labor force in the 1960s and 70s.  

Also, let's not conclude that this is all due to the aging of the baby boomers.  As Michael Strain recently noted in a series of tweets (here is one), the LFPR is declining even among those aged 25-54.  The LFPR for this age group is plotted below.

The unemployment rate dropped to 5.9 percent in September, the lowest level since July 2008.  The last time our unemployment rate was below 6 percent, the economy was in the free fall of the Great Recession.   

The drop in unemployment was driven by strong jobs growth, with 248 thousand jobs added to nonfarm payrolls.  To understand just how strong this is, we can compare this to average job growth over the past five years, which was 154 thousand new jobs per month.

In addition to these new September jobs, there were revisions to earlier estimates of nonfarm employment: July was revised up by 31 thousand and August by 38 thousand jobs.

Finally, students may be interested to know that employment in "food services and drinking places" increased by 20,000 in September and 290,000 over the past year.

The unemployment rate for August ticked down to 6.1 percent, but this was not considered a great job report by most economists.

The disappointing news is on the job growth side, with just 142,000 jobs added (see graph below).

On the one hand, 142,000 NEW jobs can't be considered terrible news.  On the other hand, the big issue with the recovery from the Great Recession has been whether the economy can sustain jobs growth.  For comparison purposes, note that, since 2011 the U.S. economy has been averaging 190,000 new jobs per month.  So this recent news is not reassuring.  It will be interesting to follow total employment over the next few months.

Finally, the labor force participation rate remains at modern historically low levels.  For August, it was just 62.8%.  The LFPR has not been lower since February 1978.

The BLS released the March jobs report today and I think the news is positive. Even though the unemployment rate did not fall, it did hold steady at 6.7%. 

I see two pieces of good news in this report.  First, 192,000 new jobs were created in March.  This, along with a total of 37,000 jobs added as revisions to estimates for January and February, means three solid months of jobs growth, averaging 178,000 new jobs over this period.

The second piece of good news is the (moderate) rise in the labor force participation rate, which is now up to 63.2% (up from 62.8% in December). 

All in all, these are the kind of reports we need if the unemployment rate is going to fall back down to a reasonable, natural rate of around 5%.

Today's jobs report brought mixed news.  On the one hand, 113,000 new jobs were added to the economy in January.  On the other hand, the unemployment rate continued its decline, falling to 6.6 percent.  For perspective, note that just one year ago the unemployment rate was 7.9 percent.

One other piece of good news - the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 63 percent.  Perhaps this rate has stopped its decline.

In sum, the labor force grew while the unemployment rate declined.  We need more months like that.