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World Business Report: First broadcast 2016/02/05 22:32 GMT: US jobless rate falls to eight year low

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US jobless rate falls to eight year low

First broadcast 2016/02/05 22:32 GMT

First broadcast 2016/02/05 22:32 GMT: US jobless rate falls to eight year low

BBC World Service - World Business Report, US jobless rate falls to eight year low

Unemployment in the US is continuing to fall. But how do ordinary Americans feel?

US employers added a shade over 150,000 jobs in January - but the number was further evidence of a deceleration after months of impressive gains. The spin on Twitter from the US Labor Department was that the US economy has now seen 71 consecutive months of private sector job growth. And the administration is also pointing to another tiny drop in the unemployment rate - down to 4.9 per cent, the lowest rate since February 2008. Economist Diane Swonk gives her view from Chicago, while the BBC's David Willis speaks to people in Los Angeles. 

Carnival in Brazil is usually a four-day celebration - a time to get out in the street, make a lot of noise, maybe have a small glass of something fortifying. But it's also a time of recession, double-digit inflation and high unemployment - so while places like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are still planning de luxe parades, dozens of smaller cities have cancelled carnival. Daniel Gallas reports from Cabo Frio, a beach town close to Rio, one of the many places where carnival is taking a break this year. 

Football fans everywhere are counting down the hours to Superbowl Sunday - kickoff early evening San Francisco time. More than 100 million Americans will be watching. Rick Horrow is the Visiting Expert on Sports Business at the Harvard Law School. He spoke to us from the NFL's own headquarters hotel in downtown San Francisco.

And there's our regular round up of the week's news, with John Authers, senior investment correspondent at the FT in New York, and Anne Bagamery, Senior Editor at the International New York Times in Paris.

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First broadcast 2016/02/05 22:32 GMT: US jobless rate falls to eight year low

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