The Sobering Graph That Shows Just How Bad the Economy Continues to Be

Impact

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The workforce in America only continues to shrink. Recovery? More like cut your losses and move on. Who falls behind, stays behind in this new economy. While unemployment goes down, the workforce is getting leaner, and that's a bad thing.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released their monthly jobs report showing overall unemployment in the United States fell to 7.3% as the economy added 169,000 jobs. Millennials, those people aged 18-29, saw unemployment in their labor cohort tick up to 11.8%, from 11.6% last month. The effective (U6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 16%. The U.S. only added 169,000 jobs in August. Economists expected the number to be closer to 180,000. What’s more, the Department of Labor now says we added 104,000 jobs in July, a sharp drop from its previous estimate of 164,000. The unemployment rate dropped slightly to 7.3%, but that’s probably because of an exodus from the workforce.

The above graph shows the labor force participation rate. In Econ 101 terms, the labor force is the actual number of people available for work. The labor force of a country includes both, the employed and the unemployed. The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range).

We're hemorrhaging our work force.

:-(

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