August's unemployment report is worse than the big fat zero in job growth. People being forced into part-time jobs skyrocketed by 430,000 in a month, to a tally of 8,826,000 people. That's a 5.12% monthly jump. People in part-time jobs due to slack work conditions increased 146,000, or 2.5%.
With each unemployment report release, pundits and press quote various unemployment rates ranging from 9.1% to 22.7%, and announce that is the real unemployment rate. What does that mean and how are they getting those other numbers?
Merrill Lynch has a real unemployment estimate out and it ain't pretty.
what the official unemployment rate misses is the vast degree of ‘underemployment’ as companies cut back on the hours that people who are still employed are working. Those hours have declined 1.2 percent in the past 12 months.
The BLS still counts people as employed if they are working part time, but the number of workers who have been forced into that status because of slack economic conditions has ballooned nearly 70 percent in the past year, according to the study. Rosenberg said was that was a record growth rate for the 15-year period he has studied.
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