The drop in the unemployment rate to 8.3% in January occurred only because the Bureau of Labor Statistics removed 1.2 million people from the labor force. The adult civilian population increased 1.69 million, to 242.27 million in January, but the labor force grew by only 508,000, to 154.39 million, and the number employed increased by 847,000, to 141.637 million. How can unemployment go down when the adult civilian population grows more than the number of people who are actually employed? By excluding 1.2 million people from the labor force, so that they aren't counted as unemployed even though they're jobless. The labor force participate rate, which is the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population that is either employed or actively looking for work, has hit a 30-year low at 63.7% (154.39/242.27).
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
It's remarkable that the non-institutional population grew by over 1.5 million people in January. How long are increases in electricity and food production going to keep up with population growth, which is almost entirely driven by immigration?
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