Several, including myself, have posted as to why the traditional unemployment percentage is exaggerated downward -- that those who are too discouraged to seek employment are not reported, (They are reported in the U6 percentage). Here is a quantifiable illustration.
"At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40 percent have given up even looking.
The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows.
A tight jobs market, the skills gap between what employers want and what prospective employees have to offer, and a benefits program that, while curtailed from its recession level, still remains obliging have combined to keep workers on the sidelines, according to a Harris poll of 1,553 working-age Americans conducted for Express Employment Professionals.
On the bright side, the number is actually better than 2014, the survey's inaugural year, when 47 percent of the jobless said they had given up.
"This survey shows that some of the troubling trends we observed last year are continuing," Bob Funk, CEO of Express Employment Professionals and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, said in a statement. "While the economy is indeed getting
better for some, for others who have been unemployed long term, they are increasingly being left behind."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102694868
