9.0% unemployment rate - Tracking U.S. Monthly Unemployment

The unemployment rate dropped sharply in January to 9 percent, the lowest level in nearly two years. But the economy generated only 36,000 net new jobs, the fewest in four months.

Payrolls expanded by 36,000 jobs in January, a sharp decline from the gains of recent months and well below the level economists had forecast. The reluctance of employers to add jobs at a time of robust corporate profits, strengthening consumer spending and other economic improvement renewed concerns that this near-jobless recovery could continue for an extended period.

The picture painted by the Labor Department’s monthly snapshot of the job market was confounded by a more encouraging drop in the unemployment rate to 9 percent, from 9.4 percent a month earlier, for its lowest rate since April 2009. The unemployment rate is gleaned from a survey of households, rather than companies, and can be volatile.