NYT: Grim Job Report Not Showing Full Picture

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/business/economy/06idle.html?em

By DAVID LEONHARDT and CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: December 5, 2008

As bad as the headline numbers in Friday’s employment report were, they still made the job market look better than it really is.

The unemployment rate reached its highest point since 1993, and overall employment fell by more than a half million jobs. Yet that was just the beginning. Thanks to the vagaries of the way that the government’s best-known jobs statistics are calculated, they have overlooked many workers who have been deeply affected by the current recession.

The number of people out of the labor force — meaning that they were neither working nor looking for work and that the government did not consider them unemployed — jumped by 637,000 last month, the Labor Department said. The number of part-time workers who said they wanted full-time work — all counted as fully employed — rose by an additional 621,000.

Take these people into account, and the job market may be in its worst condition since the early 1980s. It is still deteriorating rapidly, too.

Already, the share of men older than 20 with jobs was at its lowest point last month since 1983, and very close to the low point of the last 60 years. The share of women with jobs is lower than it was eight years ago, which never happened in previous decades.

Liz Perkins, 24 and the mother of four young children in Colorado Springs, began looking for work in October after she learned that her husband, James, was about to lose his job at a bed-making factory.

FULL story at link.

[bobd0]

1. Not to mention the months leading up to what used to be the yearly buying frenzy

were always a time of INCREASED employment.

We're screwed, and I don't think most people realize just how bad it's going to get yet. The Bush Depression is going to be far worse for far longer than anyone is willing to admit but we can see the economic tsunami coming and that means it's too late to avoid it already.

[lostnotforgotten]

2. The US Government Keeps 6 Separate Unemployment Stats - U1 - U6

U3 is the number reported in the press - It does not include discouraged workers which undercounts the real unemployment rate severely.

[spindrifter]

3. I've been worried that a lot of things are

worse than we think...and we haven't hit bottom yet.

[TomClash]

4. One of Dave's best pieces

That said, it is really obvious that the job stats are skewed.