Why Eugene has high unemployment.

[Cornerguy1]

Let's keep the focus on Eugene, please, rather than wandering into the morass of state and national issues.

[haggardhouseelf]

How to retired people and stay at home moms - people who are unemployed by choice rather than having lost a job or are unable to find work - factor into unemployment?

For example - the coast is a well-known hot-bed of retired folks. The coast also has high unemployment. Do the retired folks count for part of that unemployment?

I've always wondered this. I am a stay at home mom by choice. Do I add to the unemployment numbers in Eugene?

Or do they get the numbers from counting the number of people drawing unemployment checks?

That would make more sense to me... Anyway... would anyone care to enlighten me? And a link to a good source where I may find out more info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by haggardhouseelf

How to retired people and stay at home moms - people who are unemployed by choice rather than having lost a job or are unable to find work - factor into unemployment?

For example - the coast is a well-known hot-bed of retired folks. The coast also has high unemployment. Do the retired folks count for part of that unemployment?

I've always wondered this. I am a stay at home mom by choice. Do I add to the unemployment numbers in Eugene?

Or do they get the numbers from counting the number of people drawing unemployment checks?

That would make more sense to me... Anyway... would anyone care to enlighten me? And a link to a good source where I may find out more info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Don't have a link right now--real busy--but yes, the unemployment figures are gotten by the number of people collecting unemployment insurance. Sometimes that can even be misleading in itself when people run out of benefits and are no longer counted, but still haven't found work.

[Metlakatla]

OK; I did find this; looks like I was partially wrong:

How the Government Measures Unemployment

[haggardhouseelf]

Thank you Metlakatla!

[angelbug]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Don't have a link right now--real busy--but yes, the unemployment figures are gotten by the number of people collecting unemployment insurance. Sometimes that can even be misleading in itself when people run out of benefits and are no longer counted, but still haven't found work.

I posted a link in the Portland forum to an article that calculated what it called Portland's "Employment Underutlization Rate" by adding people who had run out of unemployment compensation, and others who work part-time but want to work full-time, to the official rate as measured by those collecting unemployment. I guess it had to be an estimate since they couldn't actually speak to everyone working part-time, but the rate they came up with was 24%!