USA Today (03/07/12) Tim Mullaney

The jobless rate is declining more quickly than some economists had predicted. The economy created an average of 223,000 new jobs a month in December and January, and a Bloomberg survey predicts 204,000 jobs were created in February. However, the additional jobs are not solely responsible for the falling jobless rate.

According to some economists, the real reason the jobless rate has declined so rapidly is that not as many people as expected are looking for work. There are 1.1 million discouraged unemployed workers—those who haven’t sought a job in the past month—and many of them are expected to stay out of the job market even once the economy recovers. In addition, more Baby Boomers are retiring.