海角大神

The monthly jobs numbers are among the most important and anticipated economic measures produced by the federal government. On Fridays prior to their release, reporters, economists, and number nerds gather on Twitter and other social media and count toward the magic hour of 8:30 a.m. Eastern time as if they鈥檙e football fans awaiting Game Day kickoff.

Then 鈥淏oom!鈥� the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the report, and immediately experts are racing through it to divine its meaning. The top-line unemployment rate seems clear enough, and usually it鈥檚 indicative, but then all those folks on CNBC start rattling off sub-numbers to make subsidiary points. They鈥檒l say stuff like 鈥渘on-farm seasonally-adjusted retail payrolls are flat, so the markets will freak out like tweener girls!鈥� and so on.

After that they start throwing around 鈥淯-6鈥� and 鈥渕onthly revisions鈥� and arguing about what the Fed will do, so you switch to PBS in search of old British sitcoms. Is the jobs report really that complicated?

Well, it鈥檚 got a lot of things in it. The actual report is some 40 pages of data. But here鈥檚 our guide to a trick (or two) that will help you make sense of the numbers and sound like an expert to boot.

We鈥檒l start with on 狈辞惫别尘产别谤鈥檚 job situation. Unemployment dipped down to a five-year low of 7 percent. That鈥檚 good 鈥� it shows that hiring has picked up and remained strong since mid-summer. It鈥檚 better than many experts expected. Americans with jobs are working more hours and their wages are going up a bit.

鈥淭he numbers amount to confirmation that the jobs recovery remains underway, is well-entrenched, and is solid and steady,鈥� concludes Neil Irwin, economic czar of the Washington Post鈥檚 Wonkblog.

But here鈥檚 the trick: the unemployment rate does not really measure the total number of out-of-work Americans.

It鈥檚 a solid number in the sense that it is a consistent measure that over time provides a good idea of the state of the US economy. But it counts a shifting population of Americans who do not have a job, but haven鈥檛 been out of work for an extended period of time, and are still looking, since they haven鈥檛 gone back to school or joined the military or taken a seasonal job at Williams-Sonoma because they just got laid off.

It鈥檚 true. The BLS unemployment measure does not include people who have been out of work for 12 months. It does not count 鈥渄iscouraged鈥� workers who have given up looking for a job. It does not count people who are underemployed, such as PhD microbiologists working as nannies. (Yes, , we鈥檙e looking at you.)

The BLS does have a broader measure of unemployment that includes these people. To us, it gives a better picture of the social impact of joblessness throughout the economy. This is the 鈥淯-6鈥� unemployment number. For November, , down from 13.2 percent in October.

So, getting better. But not great by any means.

One last pro tip: The labor force participation rate is fun to look at, too. OK, maybe not 鈥渇un,鈥� but instructive.

That鈥檚 because lots of new workers enter the job market every month. Some 125,000, in fact. So just looking at the number of jobs created does not tell you everything that鈥檚 happening. The labor force participation rate shows how well US job creation is keeping up with this influx of newbies while providing new opportunity for the veteran unemployed.

狈辞惫别尘产别谤鈥檚 , up from 62.8 percent in October. But this number is still at a low point in comparison to recent years. A year ago it was 64 percent, for example.

The bottom line there may be that the US economy is still struggling to lift out of the morass of joblessness created by the Great Recession.