25-54 Labor Force vs. Employment

Recovery talk goes on and on. Assuming there is a genuine recovery as opposed to a financial recovery, where would one most likely find evidence?

I propose evidence should be apparent in those out of school, yet not retired. More specifically, we should see evidence in the age 25-54 demographic.

Let's take a look.

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate 1990-Present

The participation rate is the percentage of people who are either employed or actively seeking work.

Where is the recovery?

Some might accuse me of cherry picking a timeframe on the above chart. OK. Here is a longer-term chart.

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate 1950-Present

Women entered the workforce en masse in the 1960s to 1990s. Leveling off is understandable, but why the decline?

Reader Tim Wallace dives in further, breaking out women vs. men.

25-54 Labor Force and Employment, Men and Women

The cheerleaders will tout the rise in employment. However, the rise in employment is from the depths of recession hell.

In percentage terms, the male participation rate for age group 25-54 is the lowest in history. The female participation rate for age group 25-54 is the lowest in 24 years.

Cyclical vs. Structural

Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stated the unemployment problem is cyclical. I believe unemployment is a demographic-based structural issue.

If anyone has any credible evidence that shows the unemployment problem is cyclical in nature, not structural, please send it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3151710/posts

Unemployment Drops to 0% as Last Worker Leaves Labor Force
The People’s Cube ^ | May 3, 2014 | Opiate of the People Posted by 4Liberty

Comrade Barack Obama today became the first to achieve a milestone coveted by enlightened central planners everywhere when the Bureau of Laborious Statistics announced the much-followed totally-meaningless “headline” U3 unemployment rate for last month was ZERO PERCENT! This means that the glorious economic recovery he engineered after the disastrous Bush years has now attained FULL EMPLOYMENT!

It is a tribute to Professor Obama that he was able to find the Holy Grail which eluded history’s greatest economic thinkers such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao. This landmark achievement along with his establishment of free healthcare for everyone via the Affordable Care Act cements his reputation as the Greatest Leader in this or any other universe for all time.

The dramatic moment occurred at 12:03 PM, four weeks to the day after Lyman Yilk, a pipe-fitter from Bittcling, Pa, finally gave up looking for work. Mr. Yilk has been unemployed since 2005 but was on a celebratory bender since the day after Mr. Obama’s first election and did not know that the Keystone Pipeline (which Mr. Yilk was hoping to find work on) had been cancelled due to environmental concerns. When he finally sobered up four weeks ago and learned the project was dead, he abandoned his search to find a job.

Mr. Yilk was the last worker to leave the labor force and turned the lights out as he left. According to the BLS definition:

Quote: U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks. Without Mr. Yilk, there was no one actively looking for work any longer, hence the U3 rate was now ZERO PERCENT, praise Obama!

Gloom-and-doom naysayers were quick to note that the labor force participation rate had also dropped to zero percent which (according to them) was not a good thing as it meant no one was employed. Comrade Nancy Pelosi countered their racist, straw-man argument brilliantly by observing that it also meant no comrade was any longer “job-locked” and each was free to be an artist, writer, hooker, etc, and pursue their passion.

“There is no underestimating this tremendous achievement of Barack Obama” said Paul Klugeman, an expert on hiding declines and fudging economic statistics as well being the self-proclaimed “Conscious Liberal”. “Comrade Obama has achieved the socialist dream of freeing all of The People ™ from the slavery of work and permitting them to live off of someone else’s dime as god, if he existed, would’ve wanted.”

Dr. Klugeman was asked if a problem would arise due to the fact that since no one was working, there would also be no one to pay for the benefits that all the non-workers were collecting.

“Nonsense”, he proclaimed. “The Fed will simply print money for artists and writers and hookers to use to buy things from China! What could go wrong?”

It seems so simple now, it’s a wonder no one ever thought of it sooner.

“The genius of Dear Leader Barack Obama lies in his simplicity”, said Dr. Klugeman.

We agree.

Not to be argumentative, but would the 29 million legal immigrants be counted as unemployed if.......they are laid off? Wouldn’t they be part of the unemployment number?

Or, perhaps, what we’re seeing is a bias on the part of employers to hire legal immigrants as opposed to “born in US” people?

But what we’re talking about here is labor participation rate, i.e., the percentage of those in their working years participating in employment. And that number is in steep decline.

Just my opinion, but I think two factors are at work here. First, automation and robotics have eliminated a ton of jobs and second, the Universities aren’t teaching to the Employers needs such that whereas the biggest area of job growth is high-tech and medical. Liberal Arts graduates aren’t cutting it.

Not to be argumentative, but would the 29 million legal immigrants be counted as unemployed if.......they are laid off? Wouldn’t they be part of the unemployment number?

Yes, they would be part of the unemployment number. But the reality is that they are taking the jobs and causing the native born to be unemployed. In addition to the 29 million, there are two million guest workers at any one time. And the 11 to 20 illegal aliens are also in the mix. On top of that we bring in 1.1 million legal permanent immigrants a year regardless of the availability of jobs.

But what we’re talking about here is labor participation rate, i.e., the percentage of those in their working years participating in employment. And that number is in steep decline.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, there were only two working-age natives holding a job for every one that was not employed. This represents a huge deterioration. As recently as 2000, there were three working-age adults holding a job for every one not working.

The total number of native-born, working-age adults (18 to 65) of any education level not working (unemployed or out the labor force) was 50.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 — 8.8 million more than in the fourth quarter of 2007, and 14.7 million more than in the same quarter of 2000.

Most of new jobs created are in the service sector. They don't require a lot of skills.

If we truly had a shortage of labor, wages would be going up, not down.

They don’t self-deport.

The 29.5 million are LEGAL PERMANENT IMMIGRANTS. They don't self-deport. They are here legally.

Since there are such high numbers for the past 3 decades, I challenge the 11 million illegals are here numbers.

I agree. The USG estimate of 11.5 million illegal aliens is low. According to the USG, there are 45 million foreign born in this country with 11.5 million being illegal. I agree with the Bear-Stearns report of 20 million.

I say the number of illegals here searching for amnesty is much closer to 55 million.

Based on what?

Do your own math-—then rethink all this amnesty crap.

Forget amnesty, we are being killed by LEGAL IMMIGRATION. Every year we bring in 1.1 million LEGAL PERMANENT IMMIGRANTS. Most of them are poor and uneducated. Do the math.

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