Looking at Movement between Unemployment and Employment

A recent post in The New York Times "Economix" blog called deserved attention to "labor-force status flows," in which the Labor Department  measures, among other things, how many people moved from unemployment to employment in a given month. Not surprisingly, most of the numbers were far from cheerful — overall, nearly two-thirds of the people who were looking for a job in February were still looking for a job in March – but at least one statistic seemed hopeful: The number of people who were unemployed in February but employed in March was slightly higher (2.1 million) this year than last year (2.0 million). And it might be a bit of a surprise that more than 5 million people who were not working February were working in March. For more about job losses in the financial crisis, see: As Layoffs Spread, Innovative Alternatives May Soften the Blow.