Has Unemployment Increased Since 2011? In 2012?

No!

Unemployment is lower and employment is higher than it was in 2011!  All measures of underemployment are lower than they were in 2011 as well.

This is an example of how misleading the media can be.  I see so many searches on "jobs lost in 2011" or "number of jobs lost so far in 2012."


We have had 26 (twenty-six) straight months of job growth in the private-sector in this country, and 19 (nineteen) straight months (starting after the Census 2010 people were let go) of job growth overall.

But I hear the "real" unemployment rate is 14 or 16 or 20 percent!  The government is lying to us!

No, it is not.  Keep watching this blog for more information about the supposed "true" unemployment rate in the next few days.   And ponder a bit:  If you were counting the unemployed, who would you count as unemployed?  Who would you not count as unemployed?  Would you only count people looking for work?  In the last month?  In the last year?  Would you count retired people?  Kids in high school?  Parents at home with children?  Disabled people?         

Here's a little graph on the various "pieces" of employment and unemployment and how they compare for the months of April and October for the past four years:

Someone has got to be lying!  I've heard that MILLIONS of people are dropping out of the labor force.  This shows that ONLY a million people are discouraged now, that number is coming down, and a half a million people were discouraged BEFORE everything hit the skids in 2008.

Well, yeah.. How about that?

People ARE leaving the labor force, but there is no indication that millions of them are dropping out due to discouragement.  The largest number of people dropping out of the labor force are people 55 and over, most of whom are probably retiring.  More about this as well in the coming days.  

Let's look at the above chart.  These are the "pieces" of the labor force that create the U-6 alternate un/underemployment rate.

• The "official" unemployed are people who are unemployed and actively (within the last month) looking for work.
• The part-timers who want full-time work are people who are working part-time because they cannot find full-time work.  
• The "discouraged" are people who have looked for work in the past year, but not in the past month because they are discouraged, not for any other reason.
• The other "marginal workers" are people who were available to work and have looked for work in the past year, but have not looked for work in the past month due to family responsibilities,  school or training, illness, child-care, transportation problems, or other similar issues.
   

How Many Jobs Were Created in 2011? (Click HERE!)

A few other facts about 2011 and 2012:

• Number of jobs total end of 2010:  130,346,000
• Number of jobs total end of 2011/beginning of 2012:  132,186,000
• Number of jobs total now:  132,989,000

Private sector jobs:

• Number of private sector jobs end of 2010:  108,088,000
• Number of private sector jobs end of 2011/beginning of 2012:  110,193,000
• Number of private sector jobs now:  111,020,000

Number of People Employed:

• Number of people employed end of 2010:  139,220,000,  
• Number of people employed end of 2011/beginning of 2011:  140,790,000
• Number of people employed now:  141,865,000

Unemployment (U-3) rate:

• End of 2010:  9.4%
• End of 2011/Beginning of 2011:  8.5%
• Now:  8.1%

Underemployment (U-6) rate:

• End of 2010:  16.6%     
• End of 2011/Beginning of 2011:  15.2%
• Now:  14.5%