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Re: Hmmm........

To be honest with you, I really didn't understand that concept either.  But it is a formula that has been used for years. The up-tick is something economist look for in every economic recovery.  I did a little research and found the answer.  It's all about how BLS defines unemployment....



Each month, as regular readers of this blog know, I unpack the data released by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to get beyond the headline unemployment rate number and find out what the numbers are really telling us.

The headlines this morning: The official U.S. unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent in March to 9.9 percent in April, even as the economy added 290,000 jobs. This happened because a number of unemployed Americans who had stopped looking for work decided to try to re-enter the job force last month. They are called "discouraged" workers. They were not counted as unemployed because, according to the Labor Department, you're unemployed only if a) you're out of work and b) you've looked for work in the previous four weeks. A whole bunch of people who had stopped looking for work started again last month, increasing the size of the labor pool. Not all of them found work, so the unemployment rate ticked up.
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Posted in reply to: Re: Hmmm........ by willifstr
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