January 2012 Unemployment Report.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the “Employment Situation Summary” for January.  It was an encouraging report.  Unemployment fell .2% to 8.3%.  Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 243,000.  The labor-force participation rate did fall from 64.0% to 63.7% because the number of adults not in the labor-force increased by 1.18 million largely because of the aging of the population; 1.07 million people 65 and older dropped out of the labor-force.