Page 9 - 62 8 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Piece of news, the unemployment rate went down. it's actually not good news. it's kind of bad news. the reason it's bad news is people are dropping out of the labor force. it's something we've talked about before, but it accelerated in december, and so, you're now down to 62.8% of americans actually saying that they want to work. this is the lowest level since 1978. and it's comprised of a couple of different components, which makes it a little more complicated, one being that we do have changing demographics, and those of us in the baby boom generation are beginning to retire, and that takes ...

The lowest total in three yearse did fall. why is that? 347,000 people just walked away from the labor force and that pushed the participation rate, the state at which we go to work, 62.8%. that's the lowest in 36 years. the bottom line is america is not working. if we have the same sight labor force now, people in the labor force now as we had in 2011. -- had in 2007. bill: the number of jobs expected was 207,000? what explains why that happened? >> reporter: that's a tough one to answer. we were expecting over 200,000 new jobs. and we got 74,000.

From speaker boehner. on your point why the unemployment rate came down, people stopped looking for jobs, the percentage is 62.8% in terms of people looking for work. that is a 30-six-year low. gives you an idea why that unemployment rate came down, martha. martha: stunning. ed, thank you very much. bill: what did they expect, martha? go back 10 years to 2004. this is a number, a forecast but out by the bls, the bureau of labor statistics. this is the yellow line they expected, the participation rate to stay at over the next 10 years. look where it has gone now in blue leading up to the 2012. ...

Cycling now, less than an hour before the closing bell on wall street and the markets are ending the week mixed. why? one reason, it's jobs report friday and i'm beginning to wonder what those jobs numbers actually add up to. if you want to be bullish, the unemployment rate did drop from 7% to 6.7%. the lowest its been in five years. if you want to be bearish, 74,000 new jobs were created below the 200,000 that many were expecting. how can this be? a big drop in the rate and so few jobs added. i have three words for you. labor, participation, rate. you see that stands at 62.8%. fewer and fewer...

Has been taken outside a spacecraft. there are some growing concerns over the weekend as new numbers come out. u.s. labor force is actually shrinking. and it's happening pretty rapidly. according to the labor department, last month's unemployment rate rose slightly from 7.2% to 7.3%. and while that is only a slight change, the current labor participation rate is only 62.8% and that is a 35-year low. what is behind this troubling trend? and what can we do to maybe turn things around? let's talk to dominic tovela, financial adviser and president of tovela investments. if you want a job today, ...