| More Americans Are Giving Up Hope Of Finding Work |
| Sep-07-2012 |
| Keywords: august, jobs, unemployment, participation, obama, slow |
Today's jobs report comes on the heels of the President Obama's acceptance speech in which he asked Americans to give him more time. But as the numbers illustrate, a growing number of Americans are losing hope.
Job growth slowed again in August, the economy added just 96,000 jobs, well off the pace set in July when 141,000 new jobs were created.
And yes, the unemployment rate did decline from 8.3% to 8.1%. But that decline is a result of more Americans giving up hope of finding a job.
The Labor Department reported that some 368,000 Americans simply gave up, and dropped out of the U.S. labor force. The so-called labor participation rate in August declined .2%, falling to a near 31-year low of just 63.5%.
Doing the math, that means that nearly 4-times the number of people who found a job in August gave up finding work.
Cliff Waldman, an economist for the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI) told Fox Business Network, "That's a large number. That's the biggest story for this month." Waldman added, "It shows there's a very, very sizable level of frustration among the labor force and it's a very disturbing trend."
The Labor Department says the number of long-term unemployed in the U.S., those who haven't been able to find steady work for over six months, held steady in August at five million people. In all, 12.5 million people were out of work in the U.S. last month. |
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Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 12:00 PM Email to a friend |
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