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You can now see the pick up in people being removed starting from 2001. You also can see work force participation stayed exactly at 67.1% 3 yrs in a row despite U6 changes. Then from 2002 onward it really started to remove people exponentially while U6 took off. With 9 mil gone (retirees) seems we should be seeing some serious improvement. I would say w/ no Jobs that isn't going to happen.
Exactly.
We entered an era of a slowdown in 2001 that lasted several years. Then the thin sheet of ice, we were dancing on for couple of years, gave way in Summer 2008. It will take a long time to recover. The job growth has been anemic since 2001. Nothing puts a better perspective than acceptance that labor force grew by over 10 million between 2001 and 2008 (before the collapse) whereas private sector payroll expanded by only a third of that. But this is something many around here call “full employment” because all they see is “but official unemployment rate was low”. And these would be the same folks coming now to downplay that official unemployment rate.
If we want things to be better, we ought to set realistic expectations and contribute towards it. We’re in this for a long haul… unless it is about loving the idea of another bubble and bust (which can surely benefit a few, but disastrous for the society as a whole).
Never happen. That would show the media candidate (obama) in a poor light. They will never do an expose' on obama that will show him and his failed policies for what he / they are.
The "explanation" is bogus.
If the BLS wanted to "fudge" the numbers they would fudge ALL the numbers - INCLUDING the participation rate to make it look better. The author of the article is either:
1) Pretty stupid to overlook that lapse in logic
- or -
2) Thinks his readers are too stupid to realize that
You folks are constantly saying that YOU are the ones "thinking for yourselves" - sooooooooo THINK FOR YOURSELVES instead of buying into every stooooopid conspiracy theory some bozo posts out there on the internet.
As I said, if the BLS wanted to manipulate the numbers it would manupulate ALL the numbers - and the Labor Participation Rate would perfectly match the UE rate, and the UE rate would fall consistantly rather than stalling out and even rising some again like it did last summer.
Geeze!
Take off the tin-foil hats and use a little common sense.
That's the POINT!
If more people are RETIRED then the rate of participation GOES DOWN.
Ken
It is a percentage of the work age population excluding children and retired, so the percentages are unaffected by people retiring. For example suppose last month there were 200 people of work force age and 100 were employed. What is the work force rate? 50%. Suppose this month 100 people reach retirement age and 50% of them were employed. The new work force population would be 100 and 50 were employed, what is the new rate? 50%! The percentage view accounts for changes you describe.
Lies and damn statistics. If you think the govt is the only entity that massages data, think again. Many businesses do to hide their losses or to show faux earning data to pump up their stock value.
It is a percentage of the work age population excluding children and retired, so the percentages are unaffected by people retiring. For example suppose last month there were 200 people of work force age and 100 were employed. What is the work force rate? 50%. Suppose this month 100 people reach retirement age and 50% of them were employed. The new work force population would be 100 and 50 were employed, what is the new rate? 50%! The percentage view accounts for changes you describe.
Folks can retire at age 62 - they don't have to wait until they are 65 - and such folks are WITHIN the age limits of the defined "workforce".
Unemployment is made up of the frictionally unemployed, or people who are unemployed but have transferable job skills, and the structurally unemployed, or people who lose their jobs due to market and structural changes to the economy.
As our economy continually intersects into the "world economy", the US will continue to lose many manufacturing and other labor intensive jobs, which can be a bad thing but not neccesarily. This gives rise to other types of skilled jobs.
Since most of the unemployed during this last recession fall under the structurally unemployed category of people whose job skill sets are no longer valuable, they face the prospect of prolonged unemployment, or having to go back to school or go back into training to learn new job skills.
Many who don't look for new job skills become "discouraged", which means they have given up on seeking employment. Though they are not employed, and though they want to be and need to be employed, they are not officially counted into the unemployment statistics because the official definition of employment is someone who continually makes efforts in any four week period to seek employment.
So yes, the unemployment rate by definition might only be 8.5%, but when taken into consideration the amount of people who have just given up on finding work, the numbers are really a bit higher, probably more closer to 15%-16%, but not 20% like some are claiming here.
Also, many who have found "employment" did not find employment in jobs with the pay or skill sets previously held. Sure, you can lay me off of my job at a tech firm where I made 58k a year and where my job was transferred overseas to India. But just because I found a full time job as a cashier at Walmart making $8.50 an hour (and subsequently only 25k a year) doesn't mean I really found employment. That difference of 33k (58k-25k) is 33k less that can potentially be saved and invested, or pumped into the economy to help the economy produce more GDP. So previously unemployed workers who found employment in much lower wage jobs are also a statistic to be looked at.
Ah, I see what you are trying to say is that boomers are retiring before reaching retirement age. There really is no evidence of that and it is unlikely due to the poor performance of retirement vehicles over the last decade.
Folks can retire at age 62 - they don't have to wait until they are 65 - and such folks are WITHIN the age limits of the defined "workforce".
Ken
Exactly. And it may also be worth pointing out that many have been clinging onto jobs only to make sure they qualify for SS and Medicare before they choose to retire.
Another fact that will affect unemployment rate in the near future is draw-down of troops from war zones and otherwise. On the bright side, however, we're finally seeing respectable gains in private sector payroll. Let us hope we can maintain at least 200K plus for the next few years. We haven't done that for extended periods since the late 90s.
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