shinatoo wrote:
Very misleading title, as the stats are about the unemployment rate and not the jobless rate.
Unemployment only indicates the people seeking jobs that have registered with the unemployment office as a percentage of total jobs.
Jobless rate is the total number of employable people compared to the total number of jobs.
Unemployment would be zero if everyone quit looking for work.
Yeah, but not all those so-called "jobless" people are looking for work right now, so they may not be considered unemployed by the Labor Department. Some older people who have lost jobs in the recession have reached retirement age, so they stopped looking. Some young people decide to go to college, or go back for advanced degrees. Some women who worked, and lost their jobs, have reverted to being housewives. Not everyone who was formerly employed needs to work. A lot of women work because it gives them something to do, and because it gives them an identity. I have two sisters that work, but don't need to, because their husbands earn very good livings. I have a two sisters-in-law that work because their kids are grown and they were bored at home alone all day. Both my brothers earn very good livings, and their wives don't need to work. After all her kids were grown, my mother started working. It wasn't because they needed the money. She just didn't like being home all day.
And in many situations, when managers have to decide who to lay off, they often look at which employees would be affected the most. They often lay off people who have spouses who make good livings first. It may not be fair, but it happens more than people acknowledge.
In the aforementioned cases with my sisters and sisters-in-laws, if they were laid off under this principle, they would technically be unemployed. However, they don't financially need to work. They might seek work for awhile, and give up when they realize there aren't currently any jobs. So a lot of people under that "have given up looking" category might be these individuals.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/j ... llion.html
