Give up! It'll help our unemployment rate

A report on the state of the local economy from Sarasota County details a 17.4% drop in the unemployment rate from December 2010 to December 2011 — good news, to be sure.

But the components behind that change are less inspiring.

Two factors can cause changes to the unemployment rate: the total number of area jobs, and the number of people actively seeking work (known officially as the labor force). In this instance, the county report shows both factors contributed significantly to the jobless rate's annualized decline in December.

On the one hand, Sarasota employers did create 1,645 jobs in that time span. Total local employment increased by 1.2% as a result.

At the same time, however, nearly an identical number -- 1,654 people, according to the report -- left the labor force. That includes people moving away from Sarasota, as well as those who stopped looking for work.

So, in sum, half the decrease in the unemployment rate was the result of new jobs, while the other half was the result of a reduced labor force. In other words, job creation alone brought the unemployment rate down roughly 8.7%.

Despite recent gains, though, total jobs supported by the Sarasota economy are down nearly 5% over the past three years, from 150,982 employed in December 2008.