Yes, from the Zero Hedge link you provided, Here’s the right way to look at the unemployment rate (if we are realistic ):
In December, the civilian non-institutional population was 249,027,000 according to BLS. Of that 249,027,000, 156,129,000—or 62.7 percent—participated in the labor force, meaning they either had or job or had actively sought one in the last four weeks.
Of the 156,129,000 who did participate in the labor force, 147,442,000 had a job and 8,688,000 did not have a job but actively sought one. Those 8,688,000 are the unemployed. They equaled 5.6 percent of the labor force—or an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent (which was down from the 5.8 percent unemployment rate in November).
However, a record 92,898,000 Americans 16 and older DID NOT participate in the labor force in December 2014, as the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent.
That’s 456,000 more than the 92,442,000 Americans who did not participate in November 2014.
Also, we can get a glimpse of the NATURE of the job market from this -— the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.6 hours in December.
The manufacturing workweek edged down by 0.1 hour to 41.0 hours, and factory overtime edged up by 0.1 hour to 3.6 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.9 hours.
In December, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls decreased by 5 cents to $24.57, following an increase of 6 cents in November. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 1.7 percent. In December, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees decreased by 6 cents to $20.68.
That’s a bit of a puzzle, and not a good one. Either the competition for jobs is still far too sharp to push wages up, or businesses are having to compensate for higher costs by delaying compensation increases.
According to the Household data, the US economy added an average of 231,000 jobs in 2014, well above the level needed to keep up with population growth but not exactly sufficient to make significant inroads into the ranks of the chronically unemployed. Those idled workers may be suppressing wage growth and making it difficult for workers to turn the market to their advantage. We will need higher levels of job creation to overcome that handicap, and so far we still are waiting for the real expansion in jobs to begin.