Hi,
Not making any kind of statement here -- just something that I remembered.

News reports today say that unemployment is the lowest since 69. I was laid off around that time and I remember things being pretty tough for a while.

So, I looked it up, 69 probably had some low unemployment, but there was a recession from December of 69 through at least November of 70. I can remember asking for an application at one company and the receptionist said " I think we're still laying off".

Just a little history,

hj

 

Were you in Minnesota at the time?

I was still in high school, but there were no shortages of jobs in Florida. I worked multiple (sometimes overlapping) part time jobs. Service station, Radio Shack, construction, etc...

Minimum wage was about $1.60 back then, so it certainly wasn't an avenue to wealth....

 

Remember the devil is in the details. While there were more new jobs created than expected (re todays report) , the number of people leaving the workforce (including giving up looking for work...likely due to low wages) was quite high.

In other words, the pie got smaller, so the number of people employed is a larger percentage of the measured population, and the percentage of unemployed gets smaller as well.

 

The pie got smaller? I don't follow you....

 

I hope I get this right. It's been a few decades since Labor Econ 101 :-).

So the unemployment numbers are from surveys of certain pools of people, including those reporting to unemployment offices. The numbers reported do NOT include those people who have given up looking for employment for whatever reason...age, disillusionment, working under the table, etc. That's why in a deep recession/depression the unemployment rate might appear to get better at times, because as people drop out of the search the pool of people measured actually looking for work looks smaller. Conversely in times where things are looking up and hiring is happening, the measured unemployment rate can actually increase because more people (who previously dropped out) are coming out fo the shadows and actively looking for work...temporarily driving the unemployment rate up. Even as many jobs are being filled.

So to pick simple numbers, a region might have 1 million reported workers actively in or looking for work. if 100,000 are out of work/looking, that's a 10% unemployment rate.

But if 5000 stop looking and are therefore uncounted, that leaves the "pie (of workers) smaller" and the MEASURED unemployment drops to 9.5%. Because the measured pool/pie is now 95,000 workers. Without gaining or losing actual jobs.

I think the math is right, but it's my weakness. Anyway, all sorts of interested groups love to play with these numbers to make political hay.