9.04.2010

U-6?

Broader U-6 Jobless Rate up to 16.7%: Why the Jump? - Real Time Economics - WSJ

The comprehensive gauge of labor underutilization, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs....

The U-6 figure includes everyone in the official rate plus “marginally attached workers” — those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that’s all they could find.

Right. It turns out there is an official Labor Department measure of "labor underutilization" that's never mentioned in the press - well, never except this time in the Wall Street Journal that I've seen - and it's a whole lot worse than the one that is mentioned, as you can see.

 

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