Thursday, July 16, 2009

Unemployment, worse than you thought

The traditional measure of unemployment is the U3, which does not measure those that have gone back to work part-time to pay the bills until they get a full-time job that they desire.

Here are the different measurements of uemployment:

U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.

U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.

U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.

U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.

U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.

U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons.

The NY Times has an interesting chart on unemployment by state.

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