Labor Force Exodus Continues | Youth unemployment At 15%

  ARRA News Service - Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment numbers for September 2014. They noted, "The civilian labor force participation rate, at 62.8 percent, changed little in August and has been essentially unchanged since April. In August, the employment-population ratio was 59.0 percent for the third consecutive month but is up by 0.4 percentage point from a year earlier."

"The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in August at 7.3 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job."

However, as always there is the fact that not all people who are unemployed are counted in the unemployment rate.  BLS noted, "In August, 2.1 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down
by 201,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey."

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) today issued a statement on the Department of Labor’s unemployment report for August 2014: "“Today’s disappointing report, coupled with last week’s bleak economic forecast from the Congressional Budget Office, shows a pattern of weakness in the Obama economy that has too many Americans still asking, ‘where are the jobs?’ Republicans have listened to the American people and advanced solutions to help create more jobs, lower costs at home, and restore opportunity for all Americans - and we’ll maintain that focus in the weeks and months ahead. But our common-sense solutions have run up against a brick wall in the Senate, where Democrats are more worried about keeping their jobs than helping families find work. Americans are suffering the consequences of Senate Democrats’ inaction, and they deserve better. With job growth slowing to its lowest level this year, Senate Democrats are out of excuses for stalling the dozens of House-passed jobs bills that are stuck in that chamber. It’s time for them to get to work.”

Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens responded to the latest jobs numbers: "In the midst of what Obama continues to claim is an improving economy, in August only 80,000 fewer people were unemployed than in the previous month. Of those, 64,000 gave up on trying to get a job entirely and are no longer counted, with only 16,000 actually getting a job. Incredibly the unemployment rate went down in spite of this disastrously bad employment report because all together 268,000 fewer Americans were counted as being in the labor force at all. If our nation's economy continues along this path we will reach full employment because no one is actually being counted as being in the labor force."

Patrice Lee, Director of Outreach at Generation Opportunity, non-partisan youth advocacy organization, responded: "15% of young people are still out of work and it's no secret why- government is too big, spending levels are too high, and opportunities for us are limited. As we continue to work hard to create opportunities, politicians in Washington continue to impose policies that harm us. More than ever, we need to work to elect officials that will fight for the interests of my generation and not continue the policies of generational theft that have prevailed under the current administration."

Generation Opportunity also announced its Millennial Jobs Report (18-29 year olds) for August 2014. of critical note wer the following numbers in their report: "The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.946 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs. The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 22.4 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 19.6 percent and for Hispanics is 15.8 percent and 10.6 percent."

The employment rate will not be meaningfully increased and thus the unemployment rate decreased, until Government at all levels get out of the way of business, especially small businesses. Also, the Federal government proposal of an increase in the Federal minimum wage is not going to add more jobs nor create increased employment.

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