December 3, 2016

Unemployment at 2007 level

NPR - Unemployment dropped by 0.3 percentage points, to 4.6 percent, last month — the lowest rate since 2007 — according to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As NPR's Marilyn Geewax notes, 4.6 percent unemployment is what most economists consider "full employment," which she says is "when the number of people seeking jobs is roughly in balance with the number of openings. It doesn't mean the unemployment rate is zero because that's not realistic." (It's worth noting that employment varies by region and demographic, so the fruits of full employment aren't shared by all.)

2 comments:

Greg Gerritt said...

the unemploymebnt rate is rather low by capitalist standards becasue so many peole have stopped looking for work. IT IS STILL OUTRAGEOUSLY HIGH AND IS NOT REALLY HELPING LOW INCOME COMMUNITIES OF COLOR.

David Richardson said...

While the marquee UP number is down, the more important proportion of the working age population in the labor force is still off about 3 percent from before the Great Recession. Thus there is still a lot of slack in the labor market and wages aren't rising very rapidly.