Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.
Not many people are aware of the U-6 report that is issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most news organizations report the more popular Bureau of Labor Statistics--Civilian Unemployment Rate. If you read this report today then you learned that unemployment was 9.4 percent.
Real Unemployment U-6 -- 16.8%
There is another category of unemployed that are not counted in that report. They are described in the U-6 report this way,
Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached,have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job.The U-6 report counts everyone that is unemployed. To view the report go here.
U-6
- Total unemployed
- plus all marginally attached workers
- plus total employed part time for economic reasons
- as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers
Not a very pretty picture if you fall in these categories.
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