US Department of Labor Employment Report

December's unemployment number shows improvement with the nominal rate dropping from 9.8% to 9.4%, but those numbers might be misleading for a variety of reasons.

In order to see why they might not be the great news some of our more ebullient analysts might make you believe, some basic discussion of how the rate is calculated may be in order.  While there are many qualifiers, when the US Department of Labor computes the rate, the simplest way to explain it is as follows -

Now, let's talk a bit about the trends and numbers - the rate goes down when one of two things happens.  Either the number of people in the labor force goes up (which is not usual - this number tends to be pretty static month to month) or the number of folks that are seeking work goes down, which in turn can be because they found jobs or because they stopped looking. 

Herein lies the rub - the general consensus - true or not - is that companies don't hire during holiday season, therefore, many of you may be "unemployed" in fact; but not so by definition.  Maybe you stopped looking in December because nobody was hiring, or maybe you just needed a break from the stress of looking for work during the holiday season.  Are you going to start looking in January?  Methinks many of those that were not actively seeking in December will begin anew after the calendar flips.

Our experience at Careers Done Write shows us that this is the case - December is traditionally our slowest month and January is one of busiest.

Now of course the November numbers were somewhat higher than the previous months; so it is possible that the drop is a continuation of the trend we have seen slowly but surely over the last year, which is a building momentum of increasing employment. 

Of course, until we see the first few reports in 2011, we won't know for sure. All we do know for sure is that there are jobs out there, the competition is still fierce and you still need the right tools to help you compete.

Keep your chin up - things will get better; they always do.  The only open question is how fast and how furious it will be when it happens.