Introduction In the Wall Street Journal dated September 6th 2013, an article titled, ‘Unemployment Drops for the Wrong Reasons’ describes how unemployment has dropped in the United States based on the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics population survey. According to Izzo (2013), there was a drop in unemployment rate to 7.3% by 0.1% in August 2013. This was coupled with a drop of broader measure of unemployment by 0.3% to 13.7%. On closer scrutiny, the drop in unemployment came from wrong reasons (Izzo, 2013). The arguments in the article are that the decline in the rate of unemployment is purely due adverse factors in the US economy. The 0.1% was approximately equal to 115,000 people. The key reason that there was a drop in unemployment …show more content…
While it may be argued that there is no common basis for comparison and hence this methodology of determining trend of unemployment rate is not valid or reliable, Izzo notes that the reports often move in tandem. The opposite directions they have taken are expected and hence validity and reliability is maintained. However, it is an economic general understanding that the definition of unemployed as ‘those actively looking for work at prevailing wage rate but cannot find one’ is rather broad and fluid. Nevertheless, it is surprising to observe that unemployment rate has dropped while employment is not going up. However, the Labor Department concurred with the results from Bureau of Labor Statics and indicated that the broader unemployment rate called U6 showed a decline in unemployment. The definition of U6 or broader unemployment is the rate of unemployment which includes marginally attached labor force. The marginally attached workers/ labor force are those people who not working and are not looking for work but have recently searched for a job. This rate even includes those employed on part time basis who cannot find a full time job. The views of Izzo (2013) depict a scenario where the unemployment rate reduced because the people have lost hope and have dropped out of the boundaries of the definition of unemployed. On a personal view point, the arguments of Izzo on the
Unemployment is currently measured in the United States by counting those who "do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior four weeks, and are currently available for work" (Leonhardt). This means that a great deal of people are not counted as unemployed because they are discouraged and have not looked for work in the past four weeks. Or, the person was injured in some way and they are "not currently" available for work. This does not mean that the people in either of these groups do not actually wish to find work, but it does mean that they are not counted because of an archaic system that has been used by
People are affected by the four types of unemployment that occur throughout the economy which are frictional, structural, cyclical, and seasonal unemployment (Nickels, McHugh, McHugh, 2013). Sometimes people can’t deal with certain working conditions, supervisor, boss, or the job in general. This causes them to quit leading to frictional unemployed workers; people right out of college or high-school entering the labor market or those returning back are also considered part of frictional unemployed workers as well (Nickels et al., 2013). My father has
Beginning with unemployment in the 2007-2009 recession, U.S. unemployment rates peaked at 10% as well as held 41 consecutive months at rates higher than eight percent (Lazear 1). The U.S. economy plummeted during this time; many attributed the shift to a large decrease in the number of employed workers. To be able to better understand the unemployment issue, we must first examine the form of unemployment faced by the U.S. economy. Many believe that the changes faced by the U.S. labor market
The rate of Spaniards with jobs have become low during the previous years. According to DW English, in a Spanish town it has an equivalent of 80% unemployed. But that is only in one town this shows that as whole country if we calculate the population of Spain is 46.56 million and the total that are unemployed is 2 million people. The difficulties to get a job is twice as hard knowing there are not a lot of position available and most of them have been unemployed for more than one year. This statement shows us how much in Spain have unemployed people. Another difficulty is to get a job which as we can show that Spain doesn’t really help their people to find a job. With every day passing by their country is getting into more and more trouble. The unemployment and the falling value of dollar are the main concern of the government but the authorization prefer to avoid the problem than to face the fact. The media is also involve in it, they are forced to stop showing the real economic situation to the people. But if we look back, it not only one town that has unemployment, in the 2017 Index of Economic
The U-3 is the best known, and the most commonly used unemployment statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It calculates the U.S. unemployment rate by taking the total number of unemployed persons and dividing that figure by the total number of persons in the civilian labor force. The civilian labor force is composed of all persons above the age of sixteen, who are not serving in the military, who have employment (or who are actively seeking employment). What the BLS leaves out in the U-3 is the body of people whom they call discouraged workers. They are those who used to be included in the civilian labor force, but lost their jobs and ceased their search for new employment. The federal government’s calculation that includes our nation’s discouraged workers in the unemployment rate forms what is called the U-6. Also calculated in the U-6 are people who are working at part-time jobs but desire full-time work. Using both the U-6 and the U-3 is a far more substantial means of acknowledging our true unemployment rate.
The Depression was a gruesome time where people had worked relentlessly to survive. Unemployment today is as severe as it was in the 1930s, the unemployment rate of today is nowhere near the unemployment of the Great Depression. A pair of economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas created report called “A Historical Look at the Labor Market During Recessions”. The report is a graph of the WWII Recession, showing that the unemployment rate of a few years ago has past the unemployment rate of the WWII Recession. In 2008 the authors wrote the Unemployment Rate, it’s a report that describes the recessions of the past to the years of 2006 to 2011. The most of the recessions are above or near the average, but the highest recession is the Great Depression.
Since the early 2000’s the unemployment rates of the United States have been constantly changing. For most of this time unemployment rates were increasing at a quick pace as the country was dealing with internal financial issues of its own. When people are out of work the rates of depression and crime seem to skyrocket. This is due to the lack of funds coming into a home which result in some less than admirable acts being committed. There are many causes of unemployment and many effects that unemployment can have on not only our economy, but our personal lives as well.
The unemployment rate averaged 8.5% in 1975, almost 10% in 1982, and has been above 8.8% for more than two years, with little evidence of any improvement ahead.”
On the outstanding work “unemployment and job creation programs: is there a skills gap?” by Belinda Shipps and Robert L. Howard four types of unemployment are identified: Frictional, seasonal, structural, and cyclical. Frictional
The unemployment rate measures the percentage of people who do not have a job. Right now the unemployment rate is 5.7% that is a .04 increase from June unemployment rate of 5.3%. The 5.3 % unemployment was due to the economy adding 223,000 jobs that were considered the lowest in seven years. As long as hiring continues at these levels, the inflation rate remains low, and real GDP steady the course a boost in consumer spending and increases in profit margins should continue for businesses through 2015. Given this macroeconomic progress, I will continue to move forward with using an average percentage of unemployment rates in my forecast that will keep it negative with a minor increase over the next couple of years. As usual, an analysis of the
“The U.S. labor market may contain more people than previously thought who don’t have jobs and haven’t been looking, which means they aren’t counted in the official unemployment statistics” (Timiraos). This miscalculation report of data means that more people are returning to the labor force faster than the Congressional Budget Office has anticipated. In other words, more Americans who left the workforce for a set period of time, will reappear in the forthcoming years as demand for labor increases in the economy. The amassed amount of labor force has resulted in the CBO lowering its estimated rate of unemployment to “5.4% this year and 5.1% next year,
Why high unemployment will continue? is an article written by Robert Jacob Samuelson, graduated from Harvard University, who is a journalist for The Washington Post, where he has written about business and economic issues since 1977, and is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. He was a columnist for Newsweek magazine from 1984 to 2011, where this article was published in 2009 during the last recession.
The labour market is the geographical area from which employees are recruited for a particular job (Mondy et al. 1999). Changes in the labour market create constraints i.e. societal trends and culture for employers finding applicants with the right levels of skills (Noe et al.). The unemployment rate, education levels, occupation levels, and the mix of the age and sex will be the four key used to examine the measures of labour market (Anthony et al.1999). Those people who are not working and not looking for the job, for example households, retires, and students are considered as being "out of the labour forces". Therefore this kind of unemployed people will not be the factor of unemployment rate measurement. Usually, the unemployment rate will be high during the
Unemployment has always been something that Americans have worried about since the great depression in which one in every four people was unemployed. High unemployment has an impact on every one even those whom are still currently employed. For example if the unemployment rate is particular high then even those with jobs get worried. Unemployment is also separated in to distinct categories base on which group is the focus of the study. The categories can be by race, age or location, for example the unemployment rate of those between the age of sixty and sixty-five could be compared those between the ages of thirty and thirty-five. These categories allow economist to see which groups are the best and which groups are worst off. One group
Money is essential to any individual looking to have a decent lifestyle; labor is the avenue through which this is acquired. The economy goes through various fluctuations in activity causing unemployment to fall, rise, or level out. What this creates is the first type of unemployment, known as cyclical; frictional is the second type, caused by a temporary leave (for whatever reason) by the employee, and structural is the third type, varying with the economic changes in demand. The absence of unemployment at its maximum level is termed full employment, another version of unemployment. The term encompassing the sum of the frictional, structural, and, yet another type of unemployment, surplus unemployment is that of the natural rate of