Unemployed/underemployed
I also agree that once people "run out" of unemployment benefits, they are no longer included in the unemployed numbers that might be reported by states.
More importantly, those who take much lower-paying positions that are *underemployed* are also not counted in those unemployment figures.
For instance, I have a friend who has a Master's degree who used to work for Leo Burnett in marketing. She started working for a foreign-owned, but local, IT vendor firm for $8/hour four years ago! After four years, she got a "raise" to $12/hour. And with no insurance coverage-
If there is no "weighted average" of employees times a calculated "hourly" rate, what do raw number employment percentage increases/decreases mean at all?
Somewhere I *know* I kept a copy of a Bureau of Labor Statistcis webpage that specifically stated that *new* hire figures are built on a model.
That page specifically noted that if there are rapid market changes, their model won't show those changes for weeks.
Do you think the many store closings and financial/mortgage sector layoffs might qualify as "rapid changes" to the model?
I personally have a major problem with the fact that employment statistics do not differentiate between US citizens being hired vs. cheap *legal* foreign labor (e.g., H1-B and other visa types) being hired.
Cheap *illegal* foreign labor is even more of an issue.
Apparently, DHS recently "mandated" that foreign student visas would be extended for an additional year (as I recall). How many US students will lose access to those new-graduate jobs, as a direct result?
Also, how many Americans have been forced to train their foreign replacements to not lose their vested pension plans (e.g., Bank of America)?
Employment figures aren't worth the pixels they're displayed with-