THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: FEBRUARY 2009

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to fall sharply in February (-651,000).

The unemployment rate rose from 7.6 to 8.1 percent.

The change in total nonfarm employment for December was revised from -577,000 to -681,000.

The change for January was revised from -598,000 to -655,000.

Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by about 5.0 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 3.3 percentage points. In the past 4months payroll employment has declined by 2.6 million.

In February, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors.

• Employment in professional and business services fell by 180,000 in February.
• Widespread job losses continued in manufacturing in February (-168,000)
• The construction industry lost 104,000 jobs in February
• Employment in truck transportation declined by 33,000 in February
• Employment in financial activities continued to decline in February (-44,000)
• Retail trade employment fell by 40,000 over the month
• Employment in leisure and hospitality continued to trend down over the month (-33,000)
• Health care continued to add jobs in February, with a gain of 27,000

Since the recession began in December 2007, about 4.4 million jobs have been lost, with more than half (2.6 million) of the decrease occurring in the last 4 months

Total Employment and the Labor Force (Household Survey Data): the civilian labor force participation rate was about unchanged at 65.6 percent.

Employment population ratio: 60.3 percent, continued to trend down in February. The ratio has declined by 2.4 percentage points over the year.

In February, the number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose by 787,000, reaching 8.6 million. The number of such workers rose by 3.7 million over the past 12 months. This category includes persons who would like to work full time but were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time jobs.

Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

About 2.1 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in February, 466,000 more than a year earlier. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 731,000 discouraged workers in February, up by 335,000 from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

The other 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in February had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

The Real Unemployment Rate as indicated by Alternate Measures of Unemployment (Table A-12): 14.8%

Here's how TSYs reacted to the 830am announcement...notice yields started to fall around 930 when the stock market opened

The Dow has reacted as so....

MBS opened up much higher this morning but has since gone flat. Rate sheets are pretty much the same as yesterday. Keep a close eye on equities today....