Chris's Rants

Sunday, February 22, 2004

How the Government Measures Unemployment

Did you ever wonder How the Government Measures Unemployment?

It's absolutely fascinating (okay, it is statistics, but still, when you understand who the government considers to be unemployed, you may be very surprised).

The government doesn't consider the guy sitting on a stoop in the ghetto unemployed unless he (or she) has actively (not passively) been looking for a job. Quoting from the referenced government document (highlighting is mine):

Who is counted as unemployed?

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:
  • Contacting:
    • An employer directly or having a job interview;
    • A public or private employment agency;
    • Friends or relatives;
    • A school or university employment center;
  • Sending out resumes or filling out applications;
  • Placing or answering advertisements;
  • Checking union or professional registers; or
  • Some other means of active job search.

Passive methods of jobsearch do not result in jobseekers actually contacting potential employers, and therefore are not acceptable for classifying persons as unemployed. These would include such things as attending a job training program or course or merely reading the want ads.

Workers expecting to be recalled from layoff are counted as unemployed, whether or not they have engaged in a specific jobseeking activity. But, in all other cases, the individual must be actively engaged in some job search activity and available for work (except for temporary illness).


Interesting... if a person is laid off, their unemployment insurance runs out, and they then do exactly what the government says they should do (seek job training for a new, more employable skill), they are not counted as being in the labor force.

People who have given up in despair are not counted. Of course, they probably don't vote either, so the government could care less about them.

The problem is that they are the problem, as much if not more so than the poor sap who is collecting or who is still actively engaged in looking for work.

If someone doesn't have a regular job, one that they can count on for an extended period of time, they might just as well be considered unemployed, IMO. If someone is unemployed, and manages to get their neighbor to give them $20 to cut his lawn, they are counted as having been employed that week. Does this seem right to you?

Interestingly, as the paper points out, the statistics are derived by a sample that may in and of itself be somewhat contrived (see no evil). Take a careful look at how the survey is constructed. I wonder if they actually survey people in Roxbury, Ma. or the ghettos of Detroit, Mi. Do they change the survey periodically? I wonder if they turn a blind eye on specific areas effected by severe unemployment. Given the Bushies tendancy of distorting the facts, it wouldn't surprise me... Yet, they still can't make the numbers look good, so they resort to hand wavy characterizations that attempt to put bad news in a better light.

The facts are that the situation is not good... There's nothing positive that can be said about it.

The lady, er man, in the bog expresses my opinion best.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home