Occupy4Jobs: "All They Want from Us is Work, & Lay-Offs, Lay-Offs, Lay-Offs!"

New York City, January 16--Occupy 4 Jobs holds a 1pm rally at Union Square.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported the December, 2011
employment/unemployment data. Official unemployment dropped from 8.65% in November to 8.51% in December. The civilian labor force, however, declined from 153,937,000 to 153,887,000 which is a loss of 50,000. ...the civilian labor force should increase each month due to population increase. The loss, therefore, of 50,000 indicates continuing problems.

Official unemployment dropped from 13,323,000 to 13,097,000. That is a drop in unemployment of 226,000. Did those dropped all end up employed? No.
The official "Not in the Labor Force" category increased from 86,503,000 to 86,697,000. That is an increase of 194,000 in the month of December. While some of the increase is due to retirements and other natural increases, this figure is more than double what it should be. Some of the increase can be assumed to come from the unemployed being dropped from the labor force entirely.

This is not to say that these seasonally adjusted numbers do not imply some slight improvement in employment. They do. Here's my calculated estimate of the "REAL" unemployment situation, based upon the seasonally adjusted figures published by the BLS:

The real unemployment rate had a peak in July, 2011 of 18.28%. It then dropped to 18.14% in August, to 17.94% in September, to 17.82% in October, to 17.47% in November and to 17.29% in December. That's a total drop of almost a full percentage point.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• unemployment
• union square
• protests
• occupy4jobs.org
• social justice
• new york city