The Unemployment numbers for November -- What to Believe?

The unemployment numbers for November were just released and they undermine the credibility of the entire reporting system in my opinion. About 120,000 new jobs are said to have been created during the month, but the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent. Let me put this into the proper context: prior to the report, the consensus view among economists as reported by Bloomberg was for the creation of 131,000 jobs with the unemployment rate being 9.0 percent. The consensus, at least, makes sense since 131,000 new jobs is not enough to mover the needle on the unemployment rate. It is true that there were some adjustments to prior months and there are the usual "seasonal adjustments" made by the government, but there is simply no way that an increase of 120,000 jobs can lower the unemployment rate by the big chunk that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting.

It will take some more time to study the results to see if there is some possible reason that can explain the disparity between the two numbers, but so far it looks like there is nothing that can come close to providing such an explanation. The unemployment rate is so low that it makes one wonder whether or not it has been "adjusted" for political purposes. I have always scoffed at those who claim that politics gets involved in these numbers. While I still doubt that such a thing has happened, these numbers are so bizarre that I cannot be certain about the validity of the numbers any more.

UPDATE: According to the government a third of a million people left the labor force in November. Really? Well over 300,000 people said to themselves in November that with the holidays approaching they just did not need to earn any money and that they would simply give up looking for work. Does that make sense to anyone? This is an extraordinarily large increase in the number of folks leaving the labor force. Someone is going to have to provide a rationale for this enormous jump in departures from the labor force if the November figures are to be given any credence.