Ryan lost his job, as a title officer, more than 3 years ago. He weathered the collapse in housing for two years. Eventually, the downturn in construction and home buying caused the title company he worked for to let him go. He started looking for a new job with little hope of success. Not only could he not find a job in the title industry, he couldn’t find any kind of job paying what he used to make. The extension in unemployment benefits kept food on the table, but the constant rejection of his appeals for a job deflated him. Sometime, in the end of 2012 he gave up and stopped looking. His wife found a job paying a fraction of what he used to make, but it paid the bills. Ryan stayed home taking care of the kids.
First Quarter Sees Hundreds of Thousands Give Up
The Department of Labor publishes what is commonly known as the unemployment report on the first Friday of each month. They define the marginally employed as individuals who “were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.” They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
The reports for December, January, February, and March indicated increases in the marginally employed and discouraged workers. “Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.”
Latest Report Indicates Returning Hope
The report published on June 7 for the May statistics indicated the marginally employed returned to numbers from 12 months ago. “In May, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down from 2.4 million a year earlier…Among the marginally attached, there were 780,000 discouraged workers in May, little changed from a year earlier.” Erasing the increase of the last four months.
Wednesday we share how recent news about the consumer price index may affect you
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