[RnMomof7]

I believe traditionally war increased employment , it did not decrease it.

How can the "unemployment" stats remain constant when jobs are being elimated?
Common sense says if there are fewer places of employment then the unempolyment stats must be higher..

Could be the way we count who is "unemployed"

[familyofman]

How can the "unemployment" stats remain constant when jobs are being elimated? The number of people who have been unemployed so long that they've given up looking (5.8 million) just keeps on growing.
It's almost a question of what unemployed - is.

[LS]

You ask an excellent question ("how can unemployment stats remain constant when jobs are being eliminated"): this obviously is possibly ONLY as more jobs are being added.

I think that is the case. I think many jobs are added in smaller businesses that don't normally make the news, and this occurs for alot of reasons, especially now. First, the easiest thing for someone to do who has lost a good-paying job in a "blue collar" type work is to start his or her own business. Everything from landscaping, to electrical to plumbing to small contracting---these are businesses with relatively low startup.

Second, such jobs often just don't get counted in the official stats, because they aren't "union" jobs and they slip through the cracks in the numbers.

War is viewed by economists as TEMPORARILY increasing employment only because it puts people (usually forcibly) in the army, and replaces them with other people. But research we have on wars (Civil War, WW II) shows that the "gains" typically omit the damage to property and the cost (literally, the $ cost) in lives of war. For example, most economic historians don't find much economic boost in the War of 1812, the Civil War, or the Spanish American War. There is even controversy about whether WW II gave the purported boost to the economy it is claimed.

I think it did, but only because of the pent up savings caused by the war.

[J. L. Chamberlain]

Could be the way we count who is "unemployed"

Ding...Ding...Ding!!

I believe we have a winner!

J