unemployment down to 7%

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**youbedead**

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158483/unadjusted-unemployment-down-october.aspx

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, fell to 7.0% for the month of October, down significantly from the 7.9% measured at the end of September. Gallup's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.4%, improved more than a half a point from September.

These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews, conducted by landline and cell phone, with approximately 30,000 Americans throughout the month -- 68.3% of whom in October reported being active in the workforce. The monthly average for October excludes Oct. 29 and Oct. 30, the two days that Gallup did not poll because of the effects of Superstorm Sandy on the East Coast. Gallup calculates a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate by applying the adjustment factor the government used for the same month in the previous year. For October, Gallup applied the .04 upward adjustment the government used last year.

Seasonally unadjusted unemployment of 7.0% is the lowest Gallup has recorded since it began collecting unemployment data in January 2010. It is also more than a full point and a half improvement over the October 2011 rate, when unadjusted unemployment was 8.4%. The size of the workforce, which can influence employment rates, was little changed, at 68.3%, from 68.2% in September.

Underemployment, as measured without seasonal adjustment, was 15.9% in October, an improvement since the end of September and a significant decline from 17.8% a year ago. This is the lowest underemployment rate since Gallup started collecting underemployment data in 2010.

Gallup's U.S. underemployment measure combines the percentage who are unemployed with the percentage of those working part time but looking for full-time work. Gallup does not apply a seasonal adjustment to underemployment.

Although underemployment improved during October, the number of part-timers wanting full-time work increased to 8.9%, up from 8.6% in September. Part-time hiring generally picks up during the holiday season, so many previously unemployed members of the workforce may now be working part-time jobs but still desiring permanent, full-time employment. This is likely why the government adjusts its unemployment rate up .04 in October.

Implications

Gallup's decline in seasonally adjusted unemployment, the closest comparison to the official numbers released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), suggests that the BLS will report another decline in the unemployment rate when it releases the numbers on Friday.

Holiday sales are expected to improve over last year, which could be contributing to some of the increased hiring this year. Unless a significant number of permanent jobs are added in the coming months, unadjusted unemployment will increase again in early 2013 as seasonal jobs end. Still, the decline in seasonally adjusted unemployment and year-over-year unadjusted unemployment are a promising sign that more Americans are finding the work they desire.

Gallup.com reports results from these indexes in daily, weekly, and monthly averages and in Gallup.com stories. Complete trend data are always available to view and export in the following charts:

Daily: Employment, Economic Confidence, Job Creation, Consumer Spending
Weekly: Employment, Economic Confidence, Job Creation, Consumer Spending

Read more about Gallup's economic measures.

View our economic release schedule.

Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup Daily tracking survey Oct. 1-31, 2012, with a random sample of 28,295 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

For results based on the total sample of [national adults/registered voters], one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.

**d-usa**

Official numbers will be out tomorrow right? Not going to worry about them until then.

**whembly**

d-usa wrote:
Official numbers will be out tomorrow right? Not going to worry about them until then.

Yup! BLS did say they'd hold back for some reason... wonder what's up with that?

**azazel the cat**

whembly wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Official numbers will be out tomorrow right? Not going to worry about them until then.

Yup! BLS did say they'd hold back for some reason... wonder what's up with that?

Because the Friday before election day is the time when either side drops their A-bombs: they get the benefit of the entire weekend for their story to sink in without significant weekday-newsservice reprisals until Monday, and by then whatever was said has already spread to general knowledge before it can be refuted in any significant way.

and 7% unemployment is a massive pro-Obama ace in the hole.

**AustonT**

d-usa wrote:Official numbers will be out tomorrow right? Not going to worry about them until then.

Good call. Unemployment rose to 7.9% despite an increase of EP by the same amount.

azazel the cat wrote:
whembly wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Official numbers will be out tomorrow right? Not going to worry about them until then.

Yup! BLS did say they'd hold back for some reason... wonder what's up with that?

Because the Friday before election day is the time when either side drops their A-bombs: they get the benefit of the entire weekend for their story to sink in without significant weekday-newsservice reprisals until Monday, and by then whatever was said has already spread to general knowledge before it can be refuted in any significant way.

and 7% unemployment is a massive pro-Obama ace in the hole.

the BLS is nonpartisan remember?

**Easy E**

Weren't they closed Monday and Tuesday due to... something?

**d-usa**

Numbers look decent overall.

Lots more people working, more jobs created, more people actually looking instead of giving up.

Still going in the right direction, still a long way to go.

**AustonT**

It IS an overall positive change. It's certainly not what the O campaign was hoping for because they crowed about 7.8 last month R and friends will Caw about 7.9. And let's face it most watchers only care about the UE number not the other indicators.

**d-usa**

Yeah, I would argue that a slight bulb up is still a good thing since it means people are actually looking. What does the "real unemployment" look like?

Of course a slight rise could also be a statistical correction to last months big drop.

**CT GAMER**

d-usa wrote:
Numbers look decent overall.

Lots more people working, more jobs created, more people actually looking instead of giving up.

Still going in the right direction, still a long way to go.

Impossible, They said so on Fox news...

**AustonT**

d-usa wrote:
Yeah, I would argue that a slight bulb up is still a good thing since it means people are actually looking. What does the "real unemployment" look like?

14.6% down .1 from last month.

**Kilkrazy**

I think what most people care about is if they have a job or not, and their friends and relations, rather than some semi-abstract measure of unemployment.

**AvatarForm**

You will find, more often than not, NEWSCorp nd other large World News entities own part, if not all of these "independent" Survey/Poll companies...

**sebster**

Do you all remember when the last set of economic numbers came out, and while jobs growth was down the unemployment rate itself dropped, and that discrepancy caused loads of right wingers, including a bunch of people on this site, to start claiming the numbers were bad or even rigged?

It didn't matter that they had little or no idea how the numbers were calculated, and had not followed these numbers ever before, they were unusual and they helped Obama, and therefore they must be wrong, or possibly even a left wing conspiracy.

Funny that this time around, with numbers that have the exact same quirk, albeit in reverse (high jobs growth but unemployment ticked up slightly), and we have absolute silence.

Kilkrazy wrote:
I think what most people care about is if they have a job or not, and their friends and relations, rather than some semi-abstract measure of unemployment.

There's a lot of debate as to whether voters are impacted purely by the economic situation that economic measures represent, or whether to some extent the measures themselves might impact opinion. I tend towards the same thinking you do, but a lot of smart people make the case for the alternative, so there might be something to it.

**Jihadin**

I be highly irate if unelmpoyment jump over 8% in Oct

**d-usa**

Jihadin wrote:
I be highly irate if unelmpoyment jump over 8% in Oct

It would depend on why it jumped.

If it jumped because we created a gak-ton of jobs and more people are looking for work (moving from not-counted because they are not looking and now being "unemployed" because they started to look) because they have more confidence in the job market, then I wouldn't be too upset.