Unemployment stats don’t tell whole story
News article source: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com
New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is again lower than the national average but a deeper examination of the unemployment story would show that the statistics fail to disclose the untold number of people working in jobs beneath their skill sets. Bill, a Nashua resident will join the ranks of the underemployed if he doesn't land a high-tech job again soon; and he has little hope of of an IT job coming by then. He can also find a part-time job which he wouldn't have health benefits. To be considered unemployed, a jobless person have been actively looking for a job within the past month, Marshall said. “But someone, say an engineer working at McDonald’s, is still employed,” he said. Bill will have to consider a service industry job if he can't find a full-time position in his field. "He’ll be employed in the government’s eyes but not his."
Related to Chapter Five, this news article talks about how unemployment is defined by government and what is it stated about. In this article, it mentions that " New Hampshire had a 3.7 percent unemployment rate for February. And for the entire year of 2006, the state had a 3.4 percent jobless rate, far lower than the national average of 4.6 percent." The government considers two groups of people when determining a state’s labor force: those employed and those looking for a job. Those labeled as “looking for a job” are people filing for unemployment, as well as estimates of people entering the workforce after completing schooling or returning from being a stay-at-home parent. Adjustments are also made for those leaving the labor force because of retirement or child rearing. To be considered unemployed, a jobless person would have had to have been actively looking for a job within the past month. but the problem is that the unemployment rate do not consider the people who are working unmatched as their level of educations or abilities.
Just as the title of the news article "Unemployment Stats Don't Tell Whole Story", the unemployment rate only reflects partial of the labour market and it is not necessary to be the states of a social wealth. When we look at the level of a community activities, we should not only look at the unemployment. There are many highly educated people who are working unmatched as their level of educations or abilities. These can also be another concern beside the unemployment rate. This is a waste of human resources and we should try to eliminate this situation.
posted by Apple Z @ 7:16 PM
4 Comments:
good good...keep it up lol
Indeed, statistics cannot reveal the actual situation in our job market. There are lots of jobs available but not all of them are high level jobs. However, I do not agree that we should count those, who got jobs which do not match their educational level, as unemployed. The high-salary jobs are competitive and scarce, which means not every graduates are able to obtain the jobs as easily as they do in Macdonald. The society nees competitions and talents to remain in progress and prosperity.
I totally agree with you that the unemployment rate does not fully reflect the economy. With low unemployment rate in an area, we could still have those highly educated scholars working for jobs that require little or no skills. The seemingly low rate, therefore, is misleading because the actual economy is not well balanced as it does not have enough high-level jobs available for well-educated local workers. I believe, when the government is assessing the unemployment rate in an area, the number of people that are well-educated but can not find the professional occupations they have should be taken into consideration.
By the way, we need to keep in mind about the phenomenon of discouraged workers. Discouraged workers refer to people who leave labor force voluntarily due to unsuccessful job hunting. The unemployment rates dont reflect the true situation as discouraged workers are not taken into account. If one is not looking for a job, he or she is not considered in the labor force. In fact, the increase of number of discouraged workers may decrease unemployment rates. For example, in a small economy, there are 10 unemployed and 90 employed. The unemployment rate is 10%. Now, 2 unemployed feel frustrated in job hunting and decide to stay at home. Ceteris paribus, the unemployment rate is now 8/98 = 8.16%! (The 2 unfortunate fellow doesnt count!!) It's not a good thing even though the number tells you otherwise.
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