Jobless rate drops, largely because of discouraged people leaving job market

Associated Press ^ | 08-01-03

[Brian S]

The nation's unemployment rate dipped to 6.2 percent in July, but businesses cut jobs for a sixth month in a row, still wary despite signs the economy is on the mend. With jobs scarce, close to half a million people gave up looking.

[q_an_a]

"who were not currently looking for work because they were discouraged over job prospects. That was up from 405,000 in July 2002 but down slightly from the 478,000 discouraged people reported for June."

Read this again folks and notice the Barbara S in it. Last month the discouraged # was 478,000 this month it is 470,000. Your agenda is showing.

[bvw]

Nobody left the market, the market left them. Late stage fiat money frothing of imaginations and unaccountability.

Anyway, the slate is about to be cleaned, like how that is done or not.

[TheMole]

My wife just got a job so the numbers need revising ...

Back in the 70s they used to say that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, but a depression is when you lose your job.

[XBob]

19 - "And how do they identify who has "given up"?

Well, back in the BC days (Before Clinton), they did surveys and caculated how many people had 'given up', and counted these people in the unemployment rate.

Xlinton made numbers of changes in the reporting of unemployment statistics collection/reporting process, dropping the unemployment rate, markedly, and enhancing his 'boom', which he inherited Regan and Bush tax and econoic changes really started to kick in (it takes 5-10 years).

Now, if you have 'given up', and no longer report at least weekly to the state employment office and register for non-existent jobs, you are no longer counted.

Believe me, it gets very frustrating, when there are no jobs for you, and you are either over qualified or under qualified for every available job.

13 - waterstraat - how right you are - it is super discouraging, month after month.
- "When there arent any jobs, you stop looking. "

[XBob]

26 bttt - "Since you have taken it upon your self to attack Americans and america by defending the current trade envirornment. Perhaps you can answer why American taxpayers should subsidize the offshoring of jobs. "

We need to send our congressional jobs to India too, and then this BS will stop straight away. I am sure we can buy congressmen considerably cheaper in Inida or the Philippines.

[XBob]

29 - "They're missing that something new is going on. The jobs that have been lost aren't coming back."

How right you are. It is now quite cheap to hire a cheap button pusher for a new automated factory building high quality items overseas.

I know, I helped build numbers of them. And each time we rebuilt an old plant in the US, we basicly doubled production without increasing employment, or we cut employment markedly. I checked the history of one plant I helped rebuild, and it had gone from 1700 employees, to 170 employees in 40 years, and production 10 times the capacity of 40 years ago.

When the new plant went overseas, it always had the new technology, and now the third world countries are producing higher quality items than the US plant, and doing it with fewer and cheaper workers, because of higher automation. Pushing buttons doesn't take much training.

[George W. Bush]

This is the lastest figures on the GDP for next year. If we hit over 6% (low end) the country will be at full employment. It always happens in a booming ecomony.

I very much hope you're right.

But I don't think those jobs are going to come back. Europe has created a permanent unemployed class by union rules and overregulation and by making it so hard to fire anyone. I don't want us to go that route. But I don't like these unemployment numbers and the loss of good jobs. Unlike some of the manufacturing losses in the Nineties (where old decrepit factories were closed and new factories built overseas that relied on more modern machinery), the flight of these good jobs based on education and skill are more threatening to the American middle class long term. We've seen loss of jobs to machinery and even to cheap labor for a long time. This seems to be a different story.

BTW, I'm not in hi-tech so I'm not defending some personal sinecure. I am concerned about a lot of people, some here at FR, who are unemployed and facing some very hard times. With the economy sluggish and the good jobs vanishing, where will they find work? What about the college kids graduating with almost impossible debt loads these days?

A little free market philosophy rings pretty hollow.

If we don't see your anticipated drastic improvement in the economy and in unemployment and a general satisfaction with the economy, BushCo is toast regardless of what idiot the Dims run.

[novacation]

There is always a job for the person who is willing to work.It may not be as nice as the last one, but IF a person has any kind of sense there is always a way to make a living. Of course it depends on your definition of IF.

I can't believe I said that.

[XBob]

31 - bttt

"And how do they identify who has "given up"?

In government-speak, that simply means that your benefits have run out."

see my last few posts

[XBob]

34 - bttt - one of the few that gets it:

'I personally believe that the powers that be know that we are just a few years from totally bankrupting our country so they are just going along and getting what ever they can in the mean time.'

[clamper1797]

Thanks for keeping up the good fight my friend ... the adject STUPIDITY and arrogance on this thread is beyond belief

[snopercod]

good ones

[clamper1797]

I was referring this frigging genius' post ...

. that is the most pathetic accumulation of garbage I've ever read outside a Puplava column - seriously, get a life & get a job. better yourself. improve your skills. but don't adopt a pathetic liberal line "wo is me" - this is America & you can do whatever you want as long as you're charging a fair price for a desired product. ,

[Cold Heat]

With jobs scarce, close to half a million people gave up looking.

I intentionally searched for a thread on this subject after seeing this BS plastered wall to wall on the news today and not a single talking head questioned the truth of this bogus claim nor asked where it came from.

It comes every time a republican is in the whitehouse and is total horsecrap of mega proportions.

They cannot divine the intentions of a job seeker!

Holy liberal clinton holdovers Batman! This is series!

Oh Yeah, Hi X-bob!

[ladyinred]

This just blew my husband and I away when they said this on the news! The liberal media is so afraid that a better economy, and lower unemployment rates will bode too well on President Bush, so they make this outrageous claim when they announce this!! They actually said that people just GAVE UP and quit looking! Can you believe the lengths this lying bunch will go to? What exactly does one do when one "gives up" on finding a job!

[Cold Heat]

I guess when the Job Service calls them with a interview appointment they tell them that they no longer need a job because their are none.

Then the Job Service counts the number of these statements and reports them to the Dept. of Labor.

LOL! Pull my finger!

[Cold Heat]

When unemployment benefits are exhausted you are no longer counted as "unemployed", you move to the "given up" category !

Incorrect!

When your benefits are exhausted, it mean only that your benefits are exhausted. You remain on the rolls until you tell them you got a job. they continue to call with interview appts. and try to find you something.

The comment made by person/persons unknown about people giving up did not come from any data. it came from a rat.

I have heard this statement made before. Once during Bush 41 and once during the Reagan years. it is a rat tactic and it works every-time. it is usually accompanied by other phrases like "Jobless recovery" or a good number of "low wage jobs".

None of this is bases on the truth! It is rat speak and we fall for it every time. Every time. Every time!!!!!!!!!!

[a_Turk]

The jobless rate declined to a two-month low

Yippeeee

The lowest it's been in two months!

We're saved! We're saved!

What a crock of sh!t..

[XBob]

hi WS.

Commiserate with snopercod, he can't find any work. I truely empathize with him. I was there. I understand. I was in oil in Houston in the 80's during the oil crash. I went through it, couldn't get a job for love nor money. Lost everything, 20 years worth of work, my house, my wife, my savings, everything. Ended up sleeping on a friend's sofa, until I left, and went to another state sleep on my Mom's sofa, where I finally got another job, at a much lower level.

I would highly recommend everybody get their kids to forego college until they get competent at a trade which can support them, and then go to college.

It took me over 10 years to get back just to the level I was at in 15 years prior.

[wny]

Of course. See mediaresearch.org they do a masterful job of pointing this out. Early in W's term, pre 9-11, they ran a nice comparison. A certain economic statistic was reported. I don't remember what it was, but they compared 2 cases. the identical number, say 2.5%, was trending down under Clinton when reported and was treated as a positve. The identical number was trending up under Bush when reported and was treated as a negative. (And it WASN'T an instance where up was bad and down was good)