Posted by Christina Romer on March 5, 2010 at 9:36 AM EST
Although the labor market remains severely distressed, today’s report on the employment situation is consistent with the pattern of stabilization and gradual labor market healing we have been seeing in recent months.
The unemployment rate remained constant at 9.7 percent. Many had expected that some of January’s 0.3 percentage point decline would prove to be a transitory drop. That it was maintained for a second month makes it more likely that it was a genuine decline, not statistical noise. The number of workers unemployed for more than 26 weeks fell by 180,000, the first decline in over a year.
