Nobody knows exactly how many people have given up looking and left the workforce. The BLS monthly household survey has a relatively large margin of error, and the pool of "discouraged workers" is not static – people move in and out of the category from one month to the next.
But the pool is growing. Since last August, the official count of people who have left the work force but still want a job has risen by a half-million, to just over 7 million. That doesn't include the roughly 8 million "underemployed" people with part-time jobs who want full-time work, double the number when the 2007 recession began.
The Baraqqi Depression grinds on.
The MSM prefers to call it the “new normal”, sadly.
Well it is odd that the woman mentioned in the article can’t find a job and a good paying job. Just last night Obama said he had invested tons of money in Education and they had hired lots of teachers. What she is not a teacher why not she should be then she could have a job.
Yup, I’m in the same boat. Laid off two years ago, I’m now working two part-time jobs, both rather iffy, one in an office and one doing physical labor on the weekend. In my late fifties, that is not easy and I’m sitting here now nursing some torn back muscles. I’m also doing a home business, but of course you need money to advertise or put yourself out in front of the buyers(and there aren’t that many buyers anymore, believe me). I am EXHAUSTED but I still can’t pay the bills, heat my home in the winter, buy enough food, or get my broken old car fixed. And I think that even if Romney is elected, he can’t fix everything—no one can. I’m naturally an optimist and I have a lot to offer an employer, but hope is ebbing away.
it seems to me that the unemployment rate should be a simple ratio of the number of working age people from the census (18to65 minus let's say a generous 35% that are homemakers or either truly disabled or simply too stooopid to be employable) to those actually employed... i'm sure i left somethings out, but it's not rocket science
This story sounds similar to mine. I’m female, in my 50’s and lost my job in the fall of 2008. Despite 30 years of experience, with no gaps in employment, I have not been able to find full time work since. I have worked part time jobs, juggling three of them, just to barely survive. I am just reaching the end of the line. I have been laid off from all three of the part time jobs in the last nine months. I did not make enough money to even collect unemployment. I spent the entire summer selling off everything I own to try and make ends meet. I don’t have tv, phone, and my internet access is through my cell phone. Thankfully, I am grandfathered into my phone plan for $25 per month.
I sit here now and look around my empty apartment. I have a couch and coffee table left, along with my clothes which fall off me since I’m a size two now, and some kitchen stuff. That’s it. All that is left of my life could fit in a couple of boxes. On Tuesday my electricity is getting turned off and I am also being evicted. I have to leave here in 3 weeks and I will be living in my 24 year old car but since I have no money to pay my next car insurance payment I’m not sure how that will turn out. My license and car registration will be suspended within 14 days of missing my insurance payment.
I have been turned down for even minimum wage jobs in retail. I have tried for so many jobs now I have lost count. I have a quarter tank of gas left in my car and not one single cent to my name. My blood pressure has been averaging 168/98 for more than a month now and I have no money to get my meds so maybe I’ll just drop dead before my electric is shut off on Tuesday. It would finally be relief from this hell I’ve been living in for the last four years.
Last week, while I was at the grocery store trying to figure out what to buy with my last $10, a very sweet elderly gentleman struck up a conversation with me. We were at the day old bread bin and he mentioned he always buys his bread there. I told him I had no other choice and we discussed my situation. He offered to pay for my meager groceries and told me it would make him feel good and that it was the Christian thing to do. I did not want him to but he insisted. He asked my name and said he would pray for me. I just lost it and broke down and cried right there in the grocery store.
I also expect some of the righteous a** holes here to tell me I deserve it because everyone that really wants a job can get one.
That's the story of IT workers since the first byte was spawned. It's just that now, it has become commonplace in all those STEM professions that government and industry whine about not finding enough workers. In a buyer's market, they're holding out for the perfect combination of knowledge, experience, youth, responsibility, work ethic, and a desperation to work at entry-level wages for 3-5 years before the company decides you're now too expensive to keep around, and start looking for someone to start out all over again.
The excuse is "overqualification", the belief that if something better comes along, you'll move. As opposed to the person interviewing you, who has signed a contract in blood that he will never leave his present position, even to move up in the same company. I've terminated many an interview that way, since I know that any company that uses crap like that on me in the first five minutes is too toxic to waste any more of my time talking to them.
We're not talking about the typical teens and twenties who start out asking the interviewer about vacation time, sick time, web surfing, etc. I'm referring to adults who say, "I want this job for the same length of time that you would want to employ me. I can do the work, and be more diligent, reliable, and knowledgeable than some slacker that you'd gladly pay the same pittance to. What the hell do you have to lose to try me out for 90 days?"
One thing a manager has to lose is his own job (or fear of it) by hiring an underling who could do his job better than he could. Never hire anybody smarter than you. There is also the common folk knowledge that there is always somebody else more desperate that will come by in a few minutes, so always play it safe, and go with the latest management fad that your boss is reading about.
A while back, Government Motors announced a desperate search for 1200 engineers to rediscover the institutional and technical knowledge lost when they kicked out 20,000 engineers. I screamed at the TV, "Why don't you just call back the best 1200 guys you just let go?!!". In the end, it was just an excuse for more H1B visas to bring in newbies who don't know any more than the average domestic slacker, but they can keep under their thumb better, due to immigration laws, than citizens. One thing about our slackers, they say "take this job and shove it", just as easily as they can hop in behind the desk.
All it takes is for a free economy to realize that paying someone who knows their stuff $25 per hour gets them 4x the productivity and skill of the $17/hr new hire that everybody thinks is the "sure", or at least "safe" thing to do.
bfl
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