Here’s the right way to look at it (if we are realistic ):
In December, the civilian noninstitutional population was 249,027,000 according to BLS. Of that 249,027,000, 156,129,000—or 62.7 percent—participated in the labor force, meaning they either had or job or had actively sought one in the last four weeks.
Of the 156,129,000 who did participate in the labor force, 147,442,000 had a job and 8,688,000 did not have a job but actively sought one. Those 8,688,000 are the unemployed. They equaled 5.6 percent of the labor force—or an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent (which was down from the 5.8 percent unemployment rate in November).
Your numbers seem reasonable.
I believe there’s a lot of movement from real jobs to “McJobs”. Of course McJobs is never mentioned in the MSM these days, only under Bush.
My neighbor went from a manager at a medium size factory to a Lowes red vest 29er. I think he looks the same in the govt stats as far as being employed.