Weekend Reading on Employment Perspective

• A closer look at the September Employment Report -- what drove the unemployment rate decline? 
• Quick Notes About the Unemployment Rate

• US unemployment rate -.3 to 7.8%
• In the last two months the unemployment rate dropped .5%
• Reversing a three-month trend, those "not" in the labor force fell by 211,000
• In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 2,643,000
• Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 2,867,000. 
• Participation Rate rose .01 to 63.6%
• Long-Term unemployment (27 weeks and over) was 4,844 million a decline of 189,000
• Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 10%.

• Four Big Economic Indicators
• Keep Up the Pressure: The US Jobs Crisis Is Not Over - PIMCO's El-Erian:
•  A significant part of the monthly improvement is associated with part-time, rather than full-time, employment. With Congress too divided to enact meaningful policy measures, the Federal Reserve will have no choice but to remain deeply engaged in uncertain policy experimentation
• The unemployment rate is now back where it was when Barack Obama assumed the presidency in January 2009. 
• With an increase to 58.7 per cent, the employment-population ratio is edging up from a multi-decade low. This is important as the country cannot rely on a steadily declining share of its adult population to maintain and improve living standards, meet rising health costs and foster less divisive income inequality.