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Unemployment Report Shows Signs of Life in Labor Participation Rate
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/unemployment-report-shows-signs-life-labor-participation-rate-5941?google_editors_picks=true
The March 2016 unemployment report shows some interesting movements. The official unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage points to 5.0% yet this is actually good news as more people came out of the woodwork and participated in the labor force. The labor force grew by almost 400 thousand and those employed shot up by another 246 thousand. Those not in the labor force declined by another -206,000 implying people who had previously given up started looking for work again. The labor participate rate ticked up another one tenth of a percentage point to a still very low 63.0%, yet there is now a clear pattern of increased participation. That said, while this report has many strong positive indicators it is a long way off to get those who fell off the labor force cliff in the last eight years to climb back up it again.