OT: Unemployment number Topic

sorry to litter this forum with crap.

How many americans are currently unemployed? I can seem to find a site with a number that makes sense.

thanks in advance.
2/10/2010 12:49 AM
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisitics publishes the official numbers.

See them at :www.bls.gov

There isn't anything simple about unemployment stats, however.

This is the best national summary of current (January) data if you're looking for numbers and not rates:

www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t11.htm

2/10/2010 2:31 AM
Carlos Zambrano will always have employment mowing my family's lawn if thats what you were worried about.
2/10/2010 7:43 AM
After looking around, I think the best guess is between 12-15 million.

2/10/2010 8:23 AM
Quote: Originally Posted By Trentonjoe on 2/10/2010After looking around, I think the best guess is between 12-15 million.

The US Labor force is 153 million and the Govt reports @ 10% unemployment number which would be @ 15 million. Problem is, the Govt considers everyone who ran out of their unemployment checks as being employed, which is not the case in this long recession. Most consider the actual number somewhere @ 17 million Americans currently out of work and many millions more "underemployed".
2/10/2010 12:23 PM
I think technically, the government considers those who run out of employment benefits as "not in the labor force".

It's hard to estimate how may people have stopped looking for work.
2/10/2010 1:58 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By boogerlips on 2/10/2010Carlos Zambrano will always have employment mowing my family's lawn if thats what you were worried about.
classy as always boogerlips
2/10/2010 2:27 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By Trentonjoe on 2/10/2010I think technically, the government considers those who run out of employment benefits as "not in the labor force".

It's hard to estimate how may people have stopped looking for work
So, if that is how they are counted, the longer the recession and "jobless" recovery takes place, the unemployment number will go down without a single job being created...weird.
2/10/2010 4:54 PM
are you looking for the normalized #'s? Unemployement +, perhaps?
2/10/2010 9:41 PM
I'm gonna take a stab at this. My post is going to be long so be warned.

The problem with unemployment number is that it is based on unemployed/labor force. Labor force is a very economic number because it has restrictions, such that discouraged workers (those who stopped looking for jobs) and those who haven't had a job in 18 month (maybe I'm wrong about the 18month) are no longer counted as part of the labor force.

Another issue is that retired people are not part of the labor force. In recessions, management offer early retirement to those near retirement age, and most probably have to take it even if they want to work.

Since actual unemployment rate (U/L) is not 1, the factors above reduce the actual unemployment rate because it decreases U and L 1:1

Furthermore, underemployed workers (part time workers) are counted as employed. In any economic downturn, people would gladly take part time job as opposed to no job, so again the unemployment rate is skewed downward.

All in all, the unemployment rate we see is severely undercounting the actual unemployment rate and the number of unemployed Americans.

Official numbers might say 15 million, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is over 20M if we count those who work part time jobs but want full time jobs as unemployed or count every 2 part timers as 1 unemployed.

2/11/2010 11:17 PM
I heard working age males is over 20% if you count all who are not working. But you gotta watch those "unnamed" sources!
2/13/2010 7:29 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By tianyi7886 on 2/12/2010I'm gonna take a stab at this. My post is going to be long so be warned.

The problem with unemployment number is that it is based on unemployed/labor force. Labor force is a very economic number because it has restrictions, such that discouraged workers (those who stopped looking for jobs) and those who haven't had a job in 18 month (maybe I'm wrong about the 18month) are no longer counted as part of the labor force.

Another issue is that retired people are not part of the labor force. In recessions, management offer early retirement to those near retirement age, and most probably have to take it even if they want to work.

Since actual unemployment rate (U/L) is not 1, the factors above reduce the actual unemployment rate because it decreases U and L 1:1

Furthermore, underemployed workers (part time workers) are counted as employed. In any economic downturn, people would gladly take part time job as opposed to no job, so again the unemployment rate is skewed downward.

All in all, the unemployment rate we see is severely undercounting the actual unemployment rate and the number of unemployed Americans.

Official numbers might say 15 million, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is over 20M if we count those who work part time jobs but want full time jobs as unemployed or count every 2 part timers as 1 unemployed.

Nailed it! To summarize you calculate by:

Number of people looking for work

divided by

people working+number of people looking for work
2/17/2010 7:47 PM
OT: Unemployment number Topic

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