Jobless Figure Lowest in 6 Years : January Rate Falls to 6.7%; Record Number Employed

The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in January--its best showing in nearly six years--as the improving economy created 565,000 non-farm jobs, the government said today.

The rolls of those officially listed as out of work fell below 8 million for the first time in Ronald Reagan’s presidency, to 7.831 million from 8.023 million in December.

The 0.2-percentage-point drop from December’s 6.9% rate was paced by an influx of new service-related jobs that raised the number of working Americans to a record of nearly 109 million, the Labor Department said.

The jobless rate was the lowest since March, 1980, when it was 6.3%. The total of unemployed Americans was last below 8 million in May of the same year.

California’s unemployment rate fell to 5.8% last month, down from December’s 6.7%. In Los Angeles County, the jobless rate rose sharply to 6.6%, but that offset an equally sharp decline in December to 5.4%.

Reagan’s ’86 Prediction

Today’s report on the national figures appeared to buttress President Reagan’s prediction that the average unemployment rate for all of 1986 will be 6.7%. It was 7.2% in 1985.

That prediction, however, is based on the economy’s growing at an annual rate of 4% this year instead of the 2.4% rate the Commerce Department reported for the fourth quarter of 1985.

An economist for one business group noted that the 6.7% jobless rate is an “adjusted” figure intended to discount normal seasonal variations. Without those adjustments, the unemployment rate actually rose last month from 6.7% to 7.3%.

Gordon Richards, an economist for the National Assn. of Manufacturers, said he is “suspicious” of the seasonally adjusted figures because economic growth remains sluggish.

Richards said it will take a few months to determine whether there really has been a significant improvement in employment.

Decline in ‘Discouraged’

In a separate report, the department said the number of “discouraged” workers, those listed as out of work for more than six months and not looking for employment, fell to 1.1 million, the lowest level in more than four years.

Last month’s unemployment rate was 4 percentage points below the 10.7% peak registered at the depth of the recession in November, 1982.

At that time, more than 12 million Americans were unemployed. Since then, 9.8 million jobs have been created. In the last year alone, according to a business payroll survey, about 3.1 million jobs were created.

Last month, mild weather and strength in the housing industry kept construction employment from taking its normal midwinter dip. Such jobs, seasonally adjusted, rose 155,000 to 4.9 million.

Among specific groups of workers, unemployment fell sharply for teen-agers to 18.4% last month. The jobless rate for adult men was 5.7%; adult women, 6.1%; whites, 5.7%; blacks, 14.4%; Latinos, 10.1%, and black teen-agers, 42.4%.