February Unemployment: Good news?

I just pulled up the new employment situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.


It shows that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.9% and the country's emloyers added 192,000 private jobs in February 2011.


Should we start celebrating the drop in unemployment yet?


As someone looking for full-time work, I should be relieved to see these numbers, but there is a dark side as well.  First of all, I haven't yet looked at the "real" numbers; the numbers of people who have dropped out of the work force, the numbers who are working part-time.  And I haven't checked out the long-term unemployment rates:  Are those people, the people laid off in the first months of the recession; the older people, ever going to be hired?


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The Meaning of Adjusted and Unadjusted Unemployment rates:


The Meaning of Seasonally Adjusted vs. Unadjusted Unemployment rates:


Read How the unemployment rate is calculated .  About halfway through the article there is a paragraph entitled "This Seasonal Adjustment Stuff is Hogwash."  It should explain it.


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Good news:  Labor participation rate has finally flattened.  It had been decreasing every month; this month it is even with last month, at 64.2%.


Good news:  The numbers of people who are considered "long-term unemployed" has gone down