What This Last Week Brought Us (Feb. 7, 2011)

Unemployment fell dramatically in January: the Labor Department reported a second straight .4% monthly drop, resulting in the largest two-month reduction of the jobless rate since 1958. While the decrease puts unemployment at 9.0% (the lowest figure since April 2009), just 36,000 net new jobs were created. The implication: due to the weather or discouragement, many job seekers didn’t look for work. “The thumbprints of the weather were all over this report,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Neil Dutta told the Associated Press. “We know the job market is recovering.”1,2