The percentage of working-age people who are currently employed is 58.2 percent, the lowest percentage since 1983, the commissioner for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.
Commissioner Keith Hall characterized the employment-to-population ratio as “very low” and “concerning.”
The ratio does not correlate directly with the unemployment rate because it does not factor out people who are not working because they are going to school or those who are unemployed by choice.
Nonetheless, Hall said it is a troubling figure.
“One of the things I’m extremely concerned about is the very-long-term unemployed. We’ve had about 6 million unemployed for six months or more. That is extremely high,” he said.
Hall spoke to The Denver Post shortly after the BLS issued its August unemployment report, which showed that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent and employers added zero jobs during the month.
Over the past four months, 40,000 jobs a month have been added, Hall said. But the country needs to add a quarter of a million jobs a month to get back to pre-recession levels, he said. “We are 10 million jobs behind where we were at the start of the recession.”
The unemployment rate doesn’t include the jobless who are so discouraged they have given up looking or those who settle for part-time or temporary work, known as the “underemployed.”
By factoring in those people, the unemployment rate jumps to 16.2 percent. Before the recession, he said, the figure was a little less than 9 percent.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
