Question:
One US government site I visit monthly is Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm
Which has a number of selections for viewing the
1) Civilian noninstitutional population
2) Civilian labor force
3) Participation rate
4) Employment-population ratio
5) Unemployed
6) Unemployment rate
7) Not in labor force
8) Persons who currently want a job
the stats are broken up male/female and age wise also
The data can be asked for seasonally adjusted and not adjusted.
One can retrieve data and one can ask for formating extensions
to get figures, difference from month to month.
In the current recovery people are added to the work force
and in fact the workforce may increase even in bad times.
The population is always increasing anyway, to jobs being
added is of relatively unimportant.
Is the nation keeping ahead of the population increase??
No.
The participation rate tells you that. If you look at that
date the rate for January, 65.8 (seasonably adjusted)
is the worst in 10 years! It is lower than a year ago, 66.1 and
one would have to go to 1988 to find a a similar level. I should
be pointed out that this calculation is based on a working age
population of over 220 million, so each each 0.1 represents
several hundred thousand jobs.
The nation remains at the bottom.
Answer:
I had been studying the jobless recovery for a couple of years
since it is an exceptional event historically. I first posted
on this on Feb 7 2003, two years ago.
The same problem exists in Europe with the exception that people
are kept on unemployment payments longer and those payments
are higher. What is different in the US is that people are
shoved off of the roles early and give up looking for jobs and
so are no longer in the "unemployment" statistics. That is why
the picture has to be looked at more carefully.
