New Jobs Report…

Workout notes
Leg weights (3 circuits of push-backs, adduction, abduction), 3 circuits of hip hikes and lunges, a few squats (just the bar…and some one legged squats), rotator cuff stuff too.

Then swimming: 5 x 100 warm up (slow as heck), 1000 in 18:52 (still sucks, but less than last week), 5 x (25 fly, 25 back), 50 side.

Achy piriformis: the PT is helping; I need to make myself do it DAILY. My PT is mostly hip hikes.

There is really no excuse not to.

Jobs

Unemployment fell to 8.3 percent (still too high, I know, but better than last month):

Expectations for today’s new jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were modest, at best. The most optimistic forecasts projected growth of about 155,000.

The nation did much better than that, adding 243,000 jobs in January, as the overall unemployment rate dropped to 8.3%. The job totals are the best we’ve seen in two years, and the jobless rate has reached its lowest level in three years.

As is always the case, there was a gap between the private and public sectors. Businesses added 257,000 jobs last month, while budget cuts forced the public sector to shed another 14,000 jobs.

Nevertheless, it’s hard not to feel good about the surprising strength of this new report. After years of jobs reports that were only considered encouraging when compared to where we’ve been, January’s totals is objectively good news. Indeed, this is one of the best — if not the very best — jobs reports since the recession began four years ago.

In terms of revisions, the job numbers for November and December were better than previously reported. Today, the BLS also released revised totals for every month in the previous calendar year, and those revisions are reflected below.

We now know, in 2011, the economy added 1.8 million jobs, which obviously isn’t good enough, but it was still the strongest year for job creation since 2006. We’ve also seen the economy add over 900,000 jobs in just the last five months.

Note: the previous job additions would be fine report….IF the economy had not been in recession prior to that. But we need to create jobs at a rate to not only take on the new job seekers (population growth) but also to take on those who had lost their jobs during the job shedding time period.

But this is still good news for the country…though I’ll bet that Willard “Mitt” Romney will not give the Obama administration an ounce of credit.