Numbers Confound Job Picture

It's always about numbers these days, especially when anyone points to key figures involving unemployment levels and job creation. At issue is the wide variety in both categories, depending on what source is cited.

The job openings rate in December 2009 was 1.9 percent, little changed from November 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported. That means there are roughly 2.5 million open jobs, with the U.S. unemployment rate standing at 9.7 percent in January 2010, per the government's report. It's not pretty by any definition.

Job openings increased in state and local governments across the country, while openings decreased in the Midwest. The industries with the highest percentage of openings are education and health services, at 2.7 percent; that's still down from 3.5 percent in December 2008.

Essentially, if a given company in America has 98 employees on its payroll, it's looking to hire two, according to a report at mediabistro.com by Rachel Kaufman of MediaJobsDaily. That's not very encouraging if you're among the 14.8 million Americans unemployed, as of the bureau's January 2010 figures.


Sergey Novoselov, blogging about the Bureau of Labor Statistics report at resumark.com, offers a different analysis of the numbers. In reality, unemployment reached an all-time high of 18 percent, which is the official number reported by the bureau, Novoselov says. There are a few different categories (sets of data) published on a regular basis and the main focus is usually on the “official” U3 unemployment rate (currently 9.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, according to Novoselov.

U3 is the total number of unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force. U4 is the next category that includes unemployed workers plus discouraged workers (someone who’s available to work but has stopped actively seeking work). U5 unemployment includes all from the previous category (U4), plus marginally attached workers (those able and willing to work but not actively seeking).

U6 is the most realistic figure involving today’s job market, Novoselov says. In addition to those unemployed from the previous categories, it also includes workers forced to work part time because they are not able to find full-time jobs.

The U6 unemployment number is 18 percent (16.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted) -- the highest number on record, according to the bureau.


Regardless of which sets of job numbers are used, there seems to be general agreement this recession is the deepest and longest downturn since the Great Depression.

There also is an emerging viewpoint from many sources that the impact on our consumer-based society may extend years, with some industries -- print media, for example -- never fully recovering because advertisers have migrated to other sources such as the Web. That's the downside.

Moving forward, the No. 1 priority for our leaders should be speeding recovery, so we can turn this negative gridlock into positive action for the greatest number of Americans.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.