The System WORKED!!
...the labor force participation rate dropped to 64.6 percent in December from 64.9 percent in November, bringing it to the lowest level of the year. Some see this as a more accurate measure of the employment situation because it takes into account those who have given up looking for work because the job market was to weak, a segment of the population that is eliminated when calculating the headline unemployment number. There were 929,000 discouraged workers in December who gave up looking for work because they didn't think jobs were available.
Trust me, the situation is pretty bad. It's very difficult for teenage, semi-skilled kids to pick up part-time employment to earn college dough. VERY difficult. First time I've seen that in 20 years or so.
MORE: (from Calculated Risk)
The Employment-Population ratio continues to plunge, falling to 58.2% in December - the lowest level since 1983
And Good News/Bad News:
Temporary help services added 47,000 jobs in December. Since reaching a low point in July, temporary help services employment has risen by 166,000
Typically these become permanent jobs. But they are not permanent jobs, yet.
*crickets*
ReplyDelete"Average (mean) duration of unemployement":
ReplyDeletehttp://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s[1][id]=UEMPMEAN
That's right. The average duration of unemployement is approaching 30 weeks.
There are now over 6.1 million Americans who have been looking for employement for over 27 weeks.
We have a staggering structural unemployement crisis in this country. One that won't be resolved for many, many years.