Easy. It's a lie.
"Participation rate" is actually influenced by a number of different factors besides just people giving up looking for work in a bad economy. If I'm not mistaken, the participation rate is the percentage of non-instutionalized people 16 years of age and older who are working or actively seeking employment. So, for example, increased lifespans mean retired people live longer, yet retired people (those not institutionalized) count as non-participating. With increases in lifespan, you should therefore expect a slow decline of participation over time. That, however, is only one of many variables that affect participation rate.
No wonder the GOP is blocking payroll tax holiday extension, it's working too well.
Good point. Also, in the early 80s much more of what we consumed was produced in the USA. Now almost all our consumer goods are imported. When government puts more money into people's pockets, whether through tax cuts or seizure and redistribution or by borrowing and giving, most of that spent money immediately flows out of the country to pay the people who manufactured the products. Since we have a huge trade imbalance, relatively little of it comes back in. Even if American companies manufactured the products, very little of it comes back, because they have to pay the local labor, because of the double taxation, and because it's more profitable and much easier to expand manufacturing in other countries (notably Red China) than here. We still get a boost from the people who handle and sell it, but those are the people who are easiest to not supplement. Traditional stores just rely on fewer employees to serve more customers, and warehouse stores can ramp up sales quite a bit without increasing employees. This is why we get so little bang for our buck with tax cuts, whether payroll taxes or income taxes. We get much more I think with unemployment extensions, since that money is quite often used on food, rent and mortgages - more of it stays here, in circulation.There really wasn't much basis for hope for a V shaped recovery. The recession of the early 1980's was in large part because the prime interest rate was as high as 21%. It was cut in half over the next few years, and shockingly enough economic growth boomed. When this recession started interest rates had almost nowhere down to go, so monetary stimulus the type of which was aggressively used before was not possible.
This is why different categories of unemployment are calculated. U3 is probably used most often because it's a fairly hard number, as the U3 people register with the unemployment office every week. U6 for example would be much harder to calculate; even if you could track down every single non-working person, most are going to say they want to work.wolf, then we agree they are fairy tale numbers. The actual unemployment rate is significantly higher than 8.6%. Unless you can explain to me how someone who is fully capable and of working age not having a job is some how not unemployed? I mean I guess you could make the argument for students, but that's about it. Being unemployed for 2 months or 2 years there's no difference, you're still unemployed.
LOL! +1Big drop due to the massive amount of street sign holder positions that have opened up. (human directionals)
Very, very good point! In my opinion the biggest tangible reason this country has prospered is opportunity at the bottom - someone with little education or resources could work hard and prosper, could move up the manufacturing ladder or even easily start his own business.I wish people wouldn't pay so much attention to the unemployment rate exclusively. Mexico has a low unemployment rate and people are fleeing. We need decent jobs where people with humble educations and backgrounds can still earn a living and get health insurance. I'm not going to be excited by third world jobs.
I will be more excited if wages go up or there's other evidence that the American middle-class is on the rise again.
The chart only spans 10 years and the first 8 saw a roughly 1% decline, the last two years saw a 2% decline and it is still basically at its bottom, we had a .2% up in Oct and a .2% decline this month. Yet with that .2% decline we have less unemployed? Perhaps you are right but I still don't get it. I don't think people started living that much longer in the last few months.
Still, even a shitty job beats no job unless you otherwise have adequate resources, which most of us don't.
Good point. I know people though who have rode out their full allotment of unemployment. They're now learning that it's VERY difficult to get a job, especially in this economy, if you haven't worked in two years.Actually, it usually does not. At least not until the unemployment runs out. Anyone with a decent job who loses it will make more money on unemployment than if they took a min wage job.
I cannot fault someone for doing the smart thing and staying on unemployment as long as possible in the hopes of finding a job which pays equal to or more than the unemployment pays.
I wish people wouldn't pay so much attention to the unemployment rate exclusively. Mexico has a low unemployment rate and people are fleeing. We need decent jobs where people with humble educations and backgrounds can still earn a living and get health insurance. I'm not going to be excited by third world jobs.
I will be more excited if wages go up or there's other evidence that the American middle-class is on the rise again.
I don't view factory labor as third world jobs, nor do I view farm hands as third world jobs. We need to stop thinking of things as "below us" and this is a prime example. You know I am actually starting to feel that I'd rather work in a shitty Chinese factory than sit at my kush job and own desk and own hours etc simply because this shit is boring. I don't view what I do as of any more importance, simply more boring.
Big drop due to the massive amount of street sign holder positions that have opened up. (human directionals)
Good point. I know people though who have rode out their full allotment of unemployment. They're now learning that it's VERY difficult to get a job, especially in this economy, if you haven't worked in two years.
True, right now for most positions companies have a big choice of people. This is also why employees tolerate being forced to work harder for the same or less money.Normally, it would be a horrible thing to have a long time of unemployment. I am sure that when the economy finally starts to improve under whoever is the next president (does not matter who it is, unless that president actively attempts to stop it, the economy will improve) companies will care less and less about that time.
This is because of the abnormally high number of good people who are currently unemployed.
True, right now for most positions companies have a big choice of people. This is also why employees tolerate being forced to work harder for the same or less money.
Good company that recognizes the worm turns and thus one day they'll be competing with other companies who definitely won't have pissed off their employees?Yep. Interestly, my company is making things better and better for its employees. Not sure why...
"Yep. Interestly, my company is making things better and better for its employees. Not sure why..."
"Five years ago, China was clearly the destination you wanted to be in," Ivo Naumann, Managing Director at AlixPartners in Hong Kong told CNBC on Friday. "What happened over the last couple of years that advantage of China has by and large been eroded, so what we are seeing now is, of course, that the U.S. is becoming awfully competitive again."
""If the (dollar) continues to depreciate even if only at 5 percent per year, and if you're having wage inflation of 20 percent or so per year in China, plus you have some increase in freight costs, actually by 2015 - so in only 4 or 5 years - the U.S. and China could actually be on par, in terms of competitiveness," Naumann added."
There weren't enough factory engineers in China either; they were trained to meet the demand. If we had more factories, we'd have more factory engineers, but like most countries our people are smart enough not to train for a job that's rapidly being moved to third world nations. Go to a remaining factory and ask them how many qualified candidates they get for each advertised engineering position; they'll likely tell you they don't advertise engineering positions to avoid having to interview that many people.Labor markets might actually be very, very tight, if you have particular skill sets employers want.
There was some stat about 4% of unemployment rate (seems high) being construction workers who were, during housing bubble, building spec houses that underlying household formation would not be able to absorb for years to come (perhaps stealing jobs from future as cash for clunkers did for new car sales or federal housing tax credit did for housing market before double dip set in). Plus lots of manufacturing workers who don't have basic computer skills to be competitive in current workplace. Also read somewhere that unit labor costs in U. S. are apparently still slightly higher than cost of comparable productivity gains available through technology, so looks like some further modest nominal wage deflation might be required to make businesses start hiring more people, rather than invest in technology (real increases in customer demand, too, are obviously needed)
Some talking head on CNBC in last day or so said basically reiterated what Steve Jobs said to President Obama - there are not enough factory engineers (community college educated is fine) to support a larger force of workers doing actual physical manufacturing jobs here in U.S. vs others countries in Asia.
Labor inflation is running 20%/year in China, so yuan in essence might be appreciating to some extent against dollar. CNBC Asia commentator yesteday said U. S. manufacturing can probably be on level playing field with China in 2015 (nominal labor costs are still higher, but are offset by higher productivity in U. S.), but that manufacturing base is still going to take time to ramp up (http://www.cnbc.com/id/45517969)
I don't view factory jobs as third world jobs either... You missed the point.
I don't think Americans are "above it". I think Americans generally think it's worth more than illegals are willing to accept. And I think farmers are willing to employee illegals because they work harder, having fewer options.That's where many of the 3rd world jobs are coming from, making things cheaper than we will or period because Americans are "above it". Why do you think so many illegals work farms? Americans are "above it". It's sad.