08 Oct Unemployment Rate Falls 1/2 a percentage point

The below article is from the Wall Street Journal.  Not great news but at least the rate is going down!  And keep in mind that in its annual revision to its employment data, the Labor Department said Thursday that 386,000 more jobs were created in the year ending in March than it originally had reported.

Maybe it’s not quite as dismal as we thought?

Hiring
Notches Modest Gains

Wall Street Journal (10/06/12) Josh Mitchell; Sara Murray

The U.S. unemployment rate fell sharply in September to its lowest level since
January 2009, suggesting that summer job growth was stronger than previously
thought, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor. The
unemployment rate declined to 7.8%, and has now fallen half a percentage point
since July, when it was 8.3%.

Employers added a seasonally adjusted 114,000 jobs, while the number of
positions added in previous months was revised upward by 86,000. The new
figures showed that the nation added 181,000 jobs in July and 142,000 jobs in
August, and that third-quarter job growth was far higher than in the spring.

Part of the growth came from a surge in the number of people taking part-time
jobs because full-time slots were not available, a trend suggesting that
employers continue to be reluctant to expand in the face of threats to the U.S.
and global economies, including deteriorating conditions in Europe and the
prospect of year-end spending cuts and tax increases in the U.S. The data
suggest that a spring slowdown in hiring was short-lived, and that the economy
has returned to its recent trend of adding about 150,000 jobs a month, on
average.