[tobyhill]

It's called the annual benchmark adjustment. They sample less so they get a higher percentage of employment and lower unemployment numbers.

I just spoke to an economist at the Labor Dept and at first he denied the adjustment would be that high until he looked at the numbers and had to admit it was the reason for the drop. He then qualified it with “under every President they adjust the numbers, not just for Obama”.

I asked him what the percentage would be if the workforce numbers were the same as Jan. 2009 and he told me “9.4% to 9.5%”.

[andy58-in-nh]

That's interesting, because I did not think that the BLS readjusted their benchmarks until February or March. In any event, I discovered another interesting little piece of information from digging through the data: only about 10% of the January job increase resulted from full-time employment. The rest was due to a record increase in part-time employment.

Perhaps the BLS ought to be relocated to the Department of Agriculture, because they now seem to specialize in fertilizer production.