Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate Versus Unemployment Rate

[Neubarth]

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate Versus Unemployment Rate

The Government is out with their Mythical, Magical, Mysterious (Be Happy) Unemployment Rate Numbers again this morning. BOLSHOI!!!!

Participation Rate for December 2010 was 64.3%
Of course, if you look back a few years you will see:
In 1998 the Participation Rate was 67.1%
In 2008 the Participation Rate was 66% (After the current Depression already started.)

Civilian labor force participation rates by age, sex, race, and ethnicity
Employment Situation Summary

What this tells you is that the Government wants you to believe that millions have dropped out of the Labor Force even though the population keeps growing. How gullible are you? They have not dropped out. There is just no work for them and they are on food stamps and welfare or SS.

The fact remains the Unemployment Rate is established by the government based upon surveys that they supposedly conduct, but nobody has ever been party to. (I have never met one person who has been interviewed for this mythical survey.) Their data from these imaginary surveys are total crap. As far as I am concerned, they just make the numbers up.

The Department of Labor also calculates their participation rate with considerable bias. If you work a few hours a day you are employed. In fact, if you work three part time jobs, working just a few hours a day on each, you are counted as three people who are employed. (Total Bullshit, but the government makes up the rules, so the numbers are never as bad as they might be.) With illegals working numerous part time jobs in our country, they pad the employment numbers as well. Many have SS numbers, even though they are not legal citizens of this country, further skewing the labor force numbers and the employment numbers. Our entire system is a hodge podge of crap.

 

[waltky]

Still got a way to go even if it is the 'new normal'...

The 'new normal' unemployment rate: 6.7%
February 14, 2011 -- Economists used to say an unemployment rate around 5% was normal, but the recession may have changed all that. The new norm may now be more like 6.7%, according to a paper released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Monday.

The report comes amid much discussion about what the "new normal" should be. Unemployment has remained above 9% for 21 straight months, and economists and policymakers, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, have repeatedly said it's likely to remain high through the next several years. And that spurs experts to ask, is high unemployment a permanent economic condition, or merely a temporary phenomenon?

Experts at the San Francisco Fed say a higher rate is probably temporary, but driven by some deep-seated structural issues. Unemployment is staying high partly because of a mismatch between workers' skills and what employers are looking for, say John Williams, an executive vice president at the San Francisco Fed, and research associate Justin Weidner. Roughly 44% of the unemployed have been out of a job for more than six months. Their skills deteriorate and it becomes even harder to find a job.

Add to that the housing bust, which left millions of homeowners underwater on their mortgages, and it's harder for workers to relocate to places where jobs are growing more rapidly. All those factors may have raised the "normal" unemployment rate, Williams and Weidner say. They also point to jobless benefits, which Congress has extended from 26 weeks to 99 weeks. While those extended benefits help struggling families get by, "they may also reduce the incentive of the unemployed to seek and accept less desirable jobs," Williams and Weidner say.

Source

 

[pinqy]

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate Versus Unemployment Rate

The Government is out with their Mythical, Magical, Mysterious (Be Happy) Unemployment Rate Numbers again this morning. BOLSHOI!!!!

Bolshoi means "big." I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.

Participation Rate for December 2010 was 64.3%
Of course, if you look back a few years you will see:
In 1998 the Participation Rate was 67.1%
In 2008 the Participation Rate was 66% (After the current Depression already started.)

Civilian labor force participation rates by age, sex, race, and ethnicity
Employment Situation Summary

What this tells you is that the Government wants you to believe that millions have dropped out of the Labor Force even though the population keeps growing. How gullible are you? They have not dropped out. There is just no work for them and they are on food stamps and welfare or SS.

And how is that not dropping out? BLS isn't saying it's by choice or lack of desire, just that the percentage of people working or trying to work is lower now. Of course it is. First to go would be the students and housewives and retirees who didn't really need a job, but working for a little extra money. They get forced out in a tight economy. And then there are secondary problems....transportation, child care, elderly care, illness. All those of course become worse during a bad economy. And fewer people who used to work try to re-enter...students wait longer and don't take part time jobs or go on for their masters because of the economy. And then of course, the people who give up. So yes, all these people are now out of the labor force: not working and not looking for work. That's the definition of Not in the Labor Force, I'm really not sure what your issue with it is. Surely you're not claiming these people are really looking for work when they say they're not?

The fact remains the Unemployment Rate is established by the government based upon surveys that they supposedly conduct, but nobody has ever been party to. (I have never met one person who has been interviewed for this mythical survey.) Their data from these imaginary surveys are total crap. As far as I am concerned, they just make the numbers up.

Then your comparison with the LF participation rate makes no sense, since it's from the same survey.

The Department of Labor also calculates their participation rate with considerable bias. If you work a few hours a day you are employed.

One hour in the reference week for pay or 15 hours or more without pay in a family business. That's necessary from a statistical viewpoint and does distort reality a bit. But there has to be an absolute bright line. But it absolutely can be misleading. Many years ago I was in discussions with the Mexican government and they pointed out that because most of the country didn't have Unemployment Insurance, people without jobs would have to go out and do something, anything, perhaps a different job every day, perhaps selling stuff on the street, etc..no "real job," but it counted as Employed, even though it was a gross distortion of the reality.

But the problem is that there's not much way around it. You have to set the bright line of any work at all, and then work out the details of hours and part time v full time etc.

In fact, if you work three part time jobs, working just a few hours a day on each, you are counted as three people who are employed.

Sort of. The non-farm payroll survey, which gives the official employment numbers, does work that way. They just ask Employers how many people they have, so someone who has multiple jobs will show up for each job they have. BUT the Household survey, which is what's used to calculate the Unemployment rate, counts people not jobs and everyone is only counted once no matter how many jobs s/he has.

With illegals working numerous part time jobs in our country, they pad the employment numbers as well. .

How is that "padding the numbers?" If they're working, they're employed. Being illegal doesn't mean they're not working.

 

[waltky]

Two opposing records set at the same time...

Record Number Employed: 152,085,000; But Record 95,055,000 Not in Labor Force
December 2, 2016 | In the first jobs report since the election, the Labor Department says a record number of people--152,085,000--were employed in November in the United States, but a record 95,055,000 Americans were not in the labor force--446,000 more than October. The employment growth pushed the unemployment rate down from 4.9 percent in October to 4.6 percent in November.

The number of unemployed Americans dropped in November to 7,400,000, the lowest of the Obama presidency. But the labor force participation rate also dropped a tenth of a point to 62.7 percent in November. It should be noted that the Labor Department's Employment Situation report is released monthly, and it reflects data gathered in the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. So today's report reflects the situation as it was just days after the Nov. 8 election. Since the election, the stock market has risen to new heights; consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board, increased "significantly" in November; existing-home sales rose for a second straight month in October at the highest annualized pace in nearly a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors; and personal income increased a healthy 0.6 percent in October, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

When President Obama took office -- amid a recession -- in January 2009, 80,529,000 Americans were not in the labor force, and that number rose steadily during his two terms, reaching 94,708,000 this past May, a record eclipsed in November. And the labor force participation rate, a key measure of labor force activity, reached a 38-year low of 62.4 percent on Obama's watch, in September 2015. It’s only 0.3 percent higher than that now. Nevertheless, White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday offered some "metrics" to help reporters "judge the performance" of the incoming Trump administration. "The first would be jobs," Earnest said. "Under President Obama and under the strategy that we have implemented, our economy has seen the largest streak of total job growth in our nation's history. "Over the last 80 months, we've created 15.5 million jobs, and the unemployment rate has been cut in half from its peak that was reached back in 2011. So, on the jobs front, President Obama has set quite a high standard and one that will be a high bar for the next administration to live up to."

On Friday, BLS said the economy added 178,000 jobs last month. But the sinking labor force participation rate remains a concern. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that over the 2014–2024 period, the growth of the labor force will stem entirely from population growth, as the overall labor force participation rate continues to decrease. People over age 16 who are no longer working or looking for work are counted as not participating in the labor force. In November, the nation’s civilian noninstitutionalized population, consisting of all people age 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 254,540,000. Of those, a record 152,085,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one. The 152,085,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 62.7 percent of the 254,540,000 civilian noninstitutionalized population. Economists say retiring Baby Boomers account for some of the slide in the labor force participation rate. But as the Labor Department recently noted, more people over the age of 55 are working.

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See also:

Americans Unemployed for 15 Weeks or More: 2.9 Million
December 2, 2016 – Although the unemployment rate dropped slightly in November to 4.6% -- the lowest it has been since August 2007, nine years ago – the number of American workers unemployed for 15 weeks or more was 2,933,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In addition, for the unemployed (age 16 and older), the average number of weeks they are out of work, according to the BLS, is 26.3 weeks. The last time the average number of weeks unemployed for people 16 years and over was near 26.3 weeks was in May 2016 (26.7 weeks) and then way back in September 2009 (26.6 weeks). That’s between six and seven months of being unemployed.

The highest average of weeks unemployed, between 2006 and 2016, was 40.7 weeks, in July 2011, according to the BLS data. That’s about 10 months of being unemployed, on average, for workers 16 and older.

The number of American workers unemployed for at least 27 weeks or more was 1,856,000 as of the end of November, reported the BLS – nearly 7 months out of work. To see the BLS data, click here, then select “Subjects,” then “National Unemployment Rate,” and then scroll down to Labor Force Statistics and click on “Top Picks.”

Americans Unemployed for 15 Weeks or More: 2.9 Million

Related:

Real Unemployment: 9.3%
December 2, 2016 – Although the “unemployment rate” in the United States for November is 4.6% -- a rate last reached 9 years ago in August 2007 – the “real unemployment” rate is much higher, more than double at 9.3% nationwide.

Real unemployment, or the U-6 number, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) includes “total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers” and part-time workers age 16 and over. As the BLS explains on its website, the “unemployment rate,” or U-3 number, “includes all jobless persons who are available to take a job and have actively sought work in the past four weeks.”

That “unemployment rate” does not include part-time workers, underemployed, and marginally attached workers, which is factored in to the U-6 (underutilization) number, the actual rate for total unemployed in the United States.

As Gallup also explains, “Widely reported unemployment metrics in the U.S. do not accurately represent the reality of joblessness in America. “For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not count a person who desires work as unemployed if he or she is not working and has stopped looking for work over the past four weeks. Similarly, the BLS does not count someone as unemployed if he or she is, for instance, an out-of-work engineer, construction worker or retail manager who performs a minimum of one hour of work a week and receives at least $20 in compensation.”

Real Unemployment: 9.3%

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

As far as I am concerned, they just make the numbers up.

of course if true Republicans would have dug up real numbers on Barry's economy and used them to defeat him and Hillary. Thats how competition works. Do you understand?

 

[waltky]

Unemployment rate down, not counting discouraged workers...

Record 153,513,000 Employed in July; 62.9% Labor Force Participation
August 4, 2017 | President Trump was awake early on this "employment report" Friday, tweeting about jobs, regulation-busting, and consumer confidence, among other things.

A few hours later, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy added 209,000 jobs in July; the number of employed people jumped by 345,000 to 153,513,000 in July, setting a third straight monthly record; the number of Americans counted as not in the labor force, meaning they don't have a job and are not looking for one, dropped for a third straight month to 94,657,000; and the nation's unemployment rate also dropped a tenth of a point, to 4.3 percent. The labor force participation rate, held down in part by a wave of Baby Boomer retirements, was 62.9 percent in July, slightly better than it has been in recent months, but still close to its 38-year low of 62.4 percent in September 2015. (The record high ws 67.3 percent in 2000.)

In July, the nation’s civilian noninstitutionalized population, consisting of all people age 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 255,151,000. Of those, 160,494,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one. The 160,494,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 62.9 percent of the 255,151,000 civilian noninstitutionalized population. In testimony before Congress in mid-July, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the declining labor force participation rate among men of prime working age is a particular concern. In July, BLS said the participation rate for men 16 and over was 68.9 percent, compared with 73.1 ten years ago and 75.0 percent 20 years ago.

Yellen said a skills gap and opioid addiction contribute to the problem: "Well, we've had many decades of declining labor force participation by prime-age men, and I think this reflects a whole variety of adverse trends, related particularly to technological change, that's eliminated many middle-income jobs, those that can be replaced by technology, combined with global -- global outsourcing in production," Yellen told the Senate Banking Committee on July 13. "And the individuals that have lost those jobs have found it difficult to acquire the skills necessary to be reintegrated into the labor market, and many individuals with less education are finding it difficult to be placed in jobs that are middle-income jobs. And so this, perhaps, intensified during the recession, but it is a much longer lasting trend.

MORE: Record 153,513,000 Employed in July; 62.9% Labor Force Participation

See also:

Black Unemployment Rate Nearly Lowest It's Been Since 2000
August 4, 2017 | Although the national unemployment rate for July was 4.3%, the unemployment rate for black workers was nearly double that of white workers, but it was also at a rate for blacks not seen since December 2000, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In addition, the June unemployment rate for blacks of 7.1% was nearly at a level only seen once in the last 45 years -- 7.0% in April 2000. In July 2017, the national unemployment rate specifically for white workers, 16 years and over, was 3.8%, the same as it was in June. The national unemployment rate specifically for black workers, 16 years and over, was 7.4% in July, up from 7.1% in June. The black unemployment rate of 7.4% is nearly double that for whites, 3.8% (or double to 7.6%).

The lowest national unemployment rate for blacks since 1972 -- 45 years ago -- was 7.0% in April 2000, according to BLS data. Thus, in nearly 50 years, the unemployment rate has not fallen below 7.0% for black workers. However, the June 2017 rate of 7.1% almost matched that number. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "Black or African American" people comprise 13.3% of the population. "White" people comprise 76.9% of the population. The chart below shows the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for black workers, by month, since 1972. (Data from the BLS.)

Black Unemployment Rate Nearly Lowest It's Been Since 2000

Related:

Unemployment Plummets in Detroit Metro (3.7%)—Beating L.A. (4.3%), New York (4.3%) and Boston (4.0%)
August 2, 2017 | The unemployment rate plummeted in the Detroit metropolitan area over the past year, dropping more in the period from June 2016 to June 2017 than in any other large metropolitan area in the United States, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last June, the Detroit metro area had an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, according to BLS. This June, it was 3.7 percent--even as the local labor force increased. As a consequence, the Detroit metropolitan area now has a lower unemployment rate than the Los Angeles, New York and Boston metropolitan areas. The Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Mich., metropolitan area, according to BLS, is one of the 51 large metropolitan areas in the United States that has a population of one million or more. “Forty-three large areas had over-the-year unemployment rate decreases and eight had increases,” said BLS. “The largest rate decrease occurred in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Mich. (-2.0 percentage points).”

Within the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area, the “metropolitan division” that includes the communities in Wayne County (the Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia metropolitan division) had the largest decline of any metropolitan division in the country, and it was larger than the decline in the overall Detroit metropolitan area. (This metropolitan division includes the actual city of Detroit.) “Eleven of the most populous metropolitan areas are made up of 38 metropolitan divisions, which are essentially separately identifiable employment centers,” said BLS. “In June, 25 metropolitan divisions had over-the-year unemployment rate decreases, 12 had increases, and 1 had no change,” said BLS. “The largest rate decline occurred in Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia, Mich. (-2.2 percentage points.”

In the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area, the civilian labor force climbed from 2,074,843 in June 2016 to 2,086,284 in June 2017—an increase of 11,441. (The civilian labor force includes all persons 16 and older who are not on active duty in the military or confined to an institution such as a prison or a nursing home and who either have a job or actively sought a job in the previous four weeks.) At the same time, the number of people unemployed in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area dropped from 118,349 to 77,728—a decline of 40,621 (A person who is unemployed when they do not have a job and have actively sought one in the last four weeks.)

This increase in the number of people employed—which significantly outstripped the increase in the labor force—resulted in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn unemployment rate dropping from 5.7 percent in June 2016 to 3.7 percent in June 2017. (The unemployment rate is the percentage of people in the labor force who did not have a job that month but were actively seeking one.) Within Wayne County—in the Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia metropolitan division—the labor force increased from 773,600 to 777,194 from June 2016 to June 2017, the number of unemployed dropped from 52,141 to 35,168, and the unemployment rate dropped from 6.7 to 4.5 percent.

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