Extra, Extra! Huge Unemployment Benchmark Reached

Extra, extra! HUGE unemployment benchmark reached News_Attraction by Johnragai-Moment_Catcher Under 10 million unemployed! The mainstream media will NOT let you celebrate about it, however. They would much rather you remain pessimistic, suspicious and discouraged. Exhibit A: http://nypost.com/2014/05/07/no-three-ring-circus-needed-to-rig-unemployment-rate/ Exhibit B:  http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80083060/ Exhibit C:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-08/jobless-claims-in-u-s-decreased-more-than-forecast-last-week.html  (this article looks positive, but read on) Is it all good? No. I know that the people who are especially impacted by the economy and still unemployed will not be celebrating these numbers, because the numbers don’t mean anything personal to them. However, when the numbers are bad, they are internalized even more. It means something â€" challenge, hardship, obstacles, pressure, and even hopelessness. There is, at the very least, hope in these numbers. Hope is much better place from which to conduct a job search. This is why I continue to put these numbers in a more positive perspective. I am but one small voice, however. It continues to enrage me when the bigger, louder voices attempt to inspire fear and negativity, and for what? Clicks? Likes? Impeachment? I consider this to be sensationalization â€" irresponsible and extremely damaging to the job seeking community morale. A glimpse at the numbers: The national unemployment rate lowered significantly over the month to 6.3% with 9.8 million unemployed. The number of persons experiencing long spells of unemployment (over a year) decreased by 283,000 people to 2.3 million. 3.5 million individuals had been unemployed for 6 months or more in April, a decrease of 287,000 over the month, and a decrease of 908,000 over the past 12 months. That means about 32% of those who became unemployed 6 months ago are still unemployed today. They are, however, competing with 1.3M fewer job seekers than they were in October when the unemployment rate was 7.2% and 11.1 million were unemployed.   The average number of weeks that job seekers are staying unemployed has increased over the month to 35.1, which is a week and a half shorter than last year, while the median also decreased to 15 weeks. Such a difference may reflect that for most industries and geographies, job seekers may be able to transition within 5 to 6 months. However, about 23% of job seekers may not be able to effectively execute a transition campaign or may be in adversely impacted geographies or shrinking markets, creating challenges to transitioning that lead to extremely long spells of unemployment. One comment on “Extra, extra! HUGE unemployment benchmark reached” Some very interesting numbers. Do we know if they include the people who have been unemployed long term and have exhausted their UE benefits? Also do the numbers include the people who took jobs but are “underemployed”. So they may be working for 12.00 per hour but they used to earn more than $50.00 per hour. Just asking … perhaps the numbers do include all of these items.