> Jobless ranks hit 10 million, most in 25 years
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> By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa
> 1 hr 22 mins ago
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> WASHINGTON – The nation's jobless ranks zoomed past 10 million last month, the most in a quarter-century
This headline is flimsy since the number of unemployed (10 million) is not a jobless "rate" and it reflects population growth, not just the health of the economy. But the actual rates look really bad, especially if you focus on the employment rate (employment-population ratio; i.e., the percentage of people with jobs). For all adults over 16, the rate was 61.8 in October. The last time it was that low was September 1993. But if the falls further, by the same amount that it has dropped since Dec. 2006 (which, to me at least, seems likely), it will stand at 60.2, the lowest it's been since August 1985.
But it's worse than even that looks, since the long-term trend-line for the overall employment rate is given a strong upward lift by the rise in female labor participation. Irrespective of the tightness of the labor market at any particular moment, a larger share of society finds it acceptable/desirable for women to work today than in 1985. That should increase the trend whatever the state of the economy.
If you want to try to strip that out, you can look only at the employment rate of prime-age males (25-54), for whom there presumably hasn't been much change - in either direction - in cultural expectations about labor force participation over the past few decades. And those numbers are truly dismal, reflecting both the current recession and longer-term trends that still aren't well understood. In October, their employment rate was 85.5, the lowest since April 1983. But if it were to fall further by a mere 0.7 percentage points (which seems almost certain), it will stand at 84.8 - the lowest rate since the BLS began keeping records in 1948.
SA