Underemployment Rises to 20.3% in March

[Go2Peace]

We are still not out of the woods yet. Hopefully we are moving there. When the numbers actually start really going down it will be more convincing. The statistics are still mixed at this point. Under-employment is a fair indicator of continued weakness.



Underemployed Americans Still Not Hopeful

Despite the Obama administration's March 16 announcement that unemployment would remain high or increase in coming months, the underemployed in March became neither more nor less hopeful about finding work soon. Six in 10 underemployed Americans are not hopeful they will find work or move from part-time to full-time work in the next four weeks. That translates to 12% of the workforce that is both underemployed and not hopeful they will find their desired amount of work. The lack of change suggests that underemployed Americans anticipated long-term difficulties in finding work well before the administration's formal announcement was made.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/127091/Underemployment-Rises-March.aspx

[DJ13]

1. Tell me about it

My wife has seen her hours go steadily down from 40+ per week down to 16 this week over the last 6 months.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend -- either our leaders value

ALL of our 'jobs' - employment - labour -
or they don't.

If they don't value button makers - they won't value
the most sophisticated 'green' jobs either.

[Newest Reality]

3. Not only are we not out of the woods ...

the forest is burning down. I know, people don't want to know about it or hear it. They can find out more on their own and I am fine with the opiate of just ignoring a systemic crises. It is not as if there are not enough obvious indicators out in the open when you just raise your ahead above the media haze and distance yourself from the endless, white noise of corporate media.

As a hypothetical, how would you handle a collapse? Would you be forthright and open, or would you keep feeding some hopeful indicators for change to the masses? You have to manage something like this or it goes off on a short fuse.

Now, I go retire to the Debbie Downer, Gloom Doom Room and STFU. No need to lambaste my cynical comment.

Peanut Gallery over and out! Oh and a big shout-out to those who have been following things closely over the years.

[Go2Peace]

4. This is an area I agree with much of what Obama has done, but it is not enough

The first and most important thing I would do is make another (smaller, but significant) bill to get banks lending. This time with money *only* for community banks and credit unions. Small business is the answer. Large businesses just bankroll what you give them or end it out of the country.

[jtuck004]

5. Lend for what? What demand is there to support business?

Until and unless they attack this with the same effort being put toward HCR, Afghanistan, the poor mistreated bankers and financiers, there is nothing but a long, slow, downhill slide in front of us.

27 million people are out of work they want to do when you include the currently unemployed, those who have given up, those who are working part-time but want or need more.

In March 154,000 jobs were created. 1/3 of those are temp census jobs, so we only created 100K jobs - roughly speaking.

Given that we need 150K jobs per month JUST to stay even with the number of people entering the work force every year, how many of those 27 million do you think went back to work in March?

Stop for a moment and do a little figuring...as did another author (right-wing though he may be - doesn't mean he is wrong)

If we create the same average number of jobs as we did during 1990- 2000, which included the dotcom boom and the jobs that were created to address the date problems in the run-up to Y2K, we will not drop under 8% unemployment until 2020.

And where are those jobs going to come from? Manufacturing - nope, we sold all that. Technology or Biotechnology - possible, but who is going to work jobs that require 4 years of biology or math or science - our schools (regardless of the reason) have not been graduating the numbers of people that are needed. construction - oh please, checked all the for sale signs?

And without jobs, there is no disposable income. Without disposable income there is no reason for a business to build things.

If our gov would put 10,000,000 people to work today, at a cost of 400 billion or so, there would be disposable income for a year or two that would drive some small bus creation. Absent that, China will grow faster than we do.

That said, I really hope those numbers are wrong, so if someone has better ones, I am all for it. But there are no better numbers.

[InkAddict]

6. I've been underemployed for a decade or two...

though continuously employed (3 employers). On top of that, it is now the 3rd time that the spouse has been unemployed for over a year since the GOP with help from Clinton took the reins of this country; spouse has only been ANNUALLY employed 4 times since 1987, each less than 2 years at a crack. He's never been fired; never had a bad review (How does one review the work of someone it only hires for days, weeks, months?) It's too late to "plan" for retirement. There's no savings, no home. WORK HARD DEMS/PROGRESSIVES...I'm counting on you to care for your elderly boomers America has forgotten.