Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Dubious Unemployment Statistics

Job statistics are often misleading because they don’t accurately give current employment figures. It seems their only purpose these days is to provide content for the media and pap on which politicians can contrive their message to confuse an economically illiterate voting public.

Many job seekers give up looking when there is a prolonged recession. So the truly unemployed figure always looks better than it is.

The unemployed tend not to look for employment as energetically while on unemployment insurance, until it’s ready to run out. So extending the periods of insurance during recessions may appear compassionate, but it makes unemployment statistics lower than they would ordinarily be.

In addition to this mess, many jobs may be actually part time or just temporary during recessions. Employers are unable to hire permanent help. or fear hiring because of rising costs and taxes.

So we constantly measure apples and oranges and produce nonsensical numbers that the media loves to repeat over and over as gospel.

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