By: Dr. Mike Campbell
There was a time that if you didn’t have a job and you wanted one, you were considered to be unemployed and were duly recorded in the unemployment statistics. However, for many, many years, unemployment has been a hot political topic. Consequently, governments of many nations and across the spectrum of political thought have chosen to redefine what it means to be unemployed such that segments of the group are no longer part of the statistics.
Unemployment figures for January show that the level of unemployment in the USA has fallen to 9% from 9.4% in December and 9.8% in November. Some 36000 new jobs were created in January; whilst this is good news, it is well short of the predicted level of 140000. Exceptionally bad winter weather has been blamed for damping down the creation of some new jobs.
Other Explanations for the Change in Numbers
Furthermore, the decline in unemployment reflected in the statistics is because 600000 people are no longer considered to be unemployed; if a person without a job is no longer actively seeking employment, they cease to be considered as unemployed. They are considered to be “"marginally attached to the workforce" which means that they are available to work, but are not actively seeking a job. 2.8 million Americans are currently considered to be in this category (and outside of the unemployment statistics).
The number of long-term unemployed has fallen slightly to 6.2 million and the number in part-time work because they could not find full-time employment has dipped from 8.9 to 8.4 million. The confusing nature of the way unemployment and job creation figures are derived from surveys of households and employers means that opinions are divided on the significance of the figures and the true direction of underlying trends in the data.