The December 2012 Jobs Report

Here is the December 2012 employment situation report from the BLS: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Key Highlights:

- The unemployment rate remained flat at 7.8%*. Non-farm employers added 155,000 new jobs.

- The number of unemployed persons rose slightly to 12.2 million from 12 million in November.

- The civilian labor force participation rate remained unchanged at 63.6%. This number matches the all-time low rate observed in 1981 and September of this year.

- The "not in labor force" count (those who have no job and have stopped looking for work) decreased by 16,000 from 88,855,000 in November to 88,839,000 in December.

- The number of persons employed for part-time economic reasons (those that are considered part-time involuntary workers) dropped to 7.9 million in December from 8.2 million in November.

- Average hourly earnings rose by 7 cents. The 12-month average for hourly earnings have risen at a 2.1% yearly rate.

- The change in total non-farm payroll employment for October was revised from +138,000 to +137,000, and the change for November was revised from +146,000 to +161,000.

* The original unemployment rate reported for November was 7.7%, but this was revised upward to 7.8% in this most recent report.