Re: Unemployment Rate Falls to 4.9%

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 02:22:51 -0800, El Castor
<justuschickens@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Jean Smith <gotermite@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>In article <1136645224.931688.70230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> "Golden State Poppy" <GoldenStatePoppy@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Unemployment Rate Falls to 4.9 Percent
>>> By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
>>> Fri Jan 6, 5:18 PM ET
>>
>>In case you are having trouble reconciling the preceding magic with
>>reality. Don't worry. They don't reflect the same thing any more,
>>e.g., not counting unemployed teenagers.
>>
>>http://www.thinkandask.com/2006/010606bush.html
>>
>Jean, that is just plain bull***!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
>Let's just examine one statement:
>
>"The United States government only keeps you "unemployed" for six
>months, whether or not you find a job."
>http://www.thinkandask.com/2006/010606bush.html
>
>I have explained over and over again to you left wingers that who is
>or is not "unemployed" has no bearing on whether or not unemployment
>insurance is being collected, nor is unemployment limited to a term
>like six months! Period!! Unemployment statistics are derived from the
>monthly Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of the
>Census in a joint project with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
>
>Here is the short explanation of who is unemployed -- straight from
>the BLS FAQ:
>
>"Who is counted as unemployed?
>Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have
>actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently
>available for work."
>
>And here is why US labor statistics are directly comparable to those
>published by other developed countries -- namely members of the
>OECD!!!
>
>"How are the unemployed counted in other countries?
>The sample survey system of counting the unemployed in the United
>States is also used by many foreign countries, including Canada,
>Mexico, Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European
>Economic Community. More recently, a number of Eastern European
>nations have instituted labor force surveys as well. However, some
>countries collect their official statistics on the unemployed from
>employment office registrations or unemployment insurance records.
>Many nations, including the United States, use both labor force survey
>data and administrative statistics to analyze unemployment."
>http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_faq.htm#Ques5
>
>And here is the exact long form definition of "employed" and
>"unemployed" as defined by the Current Population Survey:
>
>"Labor Force . Persons are classified as in the labor force if they
>are employed, unemployed, or in the Armed Forces during the survey
>week. The ``civilian labor force'' includes all civilians classified
>as employed or unemployed. The file includes labor force data for
>civilians age 15 and over. However, the official definition of the
>civilian labor force is age 16 and over.
>
>1. Employed. Employed persons comprise (1) all civilians who, during
>the survey week did any work at all as paid employees or in their own
>business or profession, or on their own farm, or who work 15 hours or
>more as unpaid workers on a farm or a business operated by a member of
>the family; and (2) all those who have jobs but who are not working
>because of illness, bad weather, vacation, or labor-management
>dispute, or because they are taking time off for personal reasons,
>whether or not they are seeking other jobs. These persons would have
>an Labor Force Status Recode (LFSR) of 1 or 2 respectively in
>character 145 of the person record which designates ``at work'' and
>``with a job, but not at work.'' Each employed person is counted only
>once. Those persons who held more than one job are counted in the job
>at which they worked the greatest number of hours during the survey
>week. If they worked an equal number of hours at more than one job,
>they are counted at the job they held the longest.
>
>2. Unemployed. Unemployed persons are those civilians who, during the
>survey week, have no employment but are available for work, and (1)
>have engaged in any specific job seeking activity within the past 4
>weeks such as registering at a public or private employment office,
>meeting with prospective employers, checking with friends or
>relatives, placing or answering advertisements, writing letters of
>application, or being on a union or professional register; (2) are
>waiting to be called back to a job from which they had been laid off;
>or (3) are waiting to report to a new wage or salary job within 30
>days. These persons would have an LFSR code of 3 or 4 in character 145
>of the person record. The unemployed includes job leavers, job losers,
>new job entrants, and job reentrants.
>
>a. Job Leavers. Persons who quit or otherwise terminate their
>employment voluntarily and immediately begin looking for work.
>
>b. Job Losers. Persons whose employment ends involuntarily, who
>immediately begin looking for work, and those persons who are already
>/on layoff.
>
>c. New Job Entrants. Persons who never worked at a full-time job
>lasting two weeks or longer.
>
>d. Job Reentrants. Persons who previously worked at a full-time job
>lasting two weeks or longer but are out of the labor force prior to
>beginning to look for work.
>
>3. Not in Labor Force. All civilians 15 years old and over who are not
>classified as employed or unemployed. These persons are further
>classified as major activity: keeping house, going to school, unable
>to work because of long-term physical or mental illness, and other.
>The ``other'' group includes, for the most part, retired persons.
>Persons who report doing unpaid work in a family farm or business for
>less than 15 hours are also classified as not in the labor force.
>
>For persons not in the labor force, data on previous work experience,
>intentions to seek work again, desire for a job at the time of
>interview, and reasons for not looking for work are asked only in
>those households that are in the fourth and eighth months of the
>sample, i.e., the ``outgoing'' groups, those which had been in the
>sample for three previous months and would not be in for the
>subsequent month.
>
>These items are asked in question 24; see the questionnaire facsimile.
>Such persons have an LFSR code of 5-7 in character 145 of the person
>record.
>
>Finally, it should be noted that the unemployment rate represents the
>number of persons unemployed as a percent of the civilian labor force
>16 years old and over. This measure can also be computed for groups
>within the labor force classified by sex, age, marital status, race,
>etc. The job loser, job leaver, reentrant, and new entrant rates are
>each calculated as a percent of the civilian labor force 16 years old
>and over; the sum of the rates for the four groups thus equals the
>total unemployment rate."
>http://www.bls.census.gov/cps/bglosary.htm
>
>Lastly, Jean, if the true unemployment rate in the United States is
>9.7%, would you care to explain why Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi have
>not bothered to inform the electorate of that fact???
>
>Jeff
>
>"The moonbats bark thrice at midnight."




I don't see anything in the above that says Germany calculates
who's unemployed the same way as the US, or anything that says
any such rules if they exist are followed in practice. "Sample
survey" doesn't mean that all sample surveys are the same
worldwide.

It seems damnably hard to get a straight answer on the web for
this issue, maybe because there's a lot of subjectivity inherent in
the question. Here's one example:

=====================================

The great untold story of the American economy in the 1990s is the
disguised high rate of unemployment and its direct impact on
stagnating living standards. Properly calculated, our rate of
joblessness is well into double digits. No wonder workers have no
bargaining power to get their share of an increasingly productive
economy.

Among economists, a debate rages on why earnings inequalities began to
rise rapidly and real median wages started to fall a quarter century
ago. Some blame a technological shift that cut demand for uneducated
labor while boosting the demand for those with greater education and
skills. Others identify global "factor price equalization"--in an open
global economy overseas workers with comparable skills but lower wages
are forcing the wages of Americans down.

What's left out of this lengthy, if inconclusive, debate is the role
played by the slack economic environment in which these two forces
have been operating. While each is real, their impacts would have been
very different if they had operated in an environment of labor
shortages rather than one of vast labor surplus. The U.S. economy has
been celebrated for creating tens of millions of jobs during the past
two decades. But properly counted, our true unemployment rate is no
better than Europe's. And nothing keeps wages from rising like a large
pool of idle or underemployed workers.

from:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=4953
=====================================

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