The Full Count: April 2021

Unemployment Data

Officially unemployed: 9.8 million (6.1%)

Hidden unemployment: 11.8 million
(Includes 5.2 million people working part-time
because they can’t find a full-time job;
and 6.6 million people who want jobs,
but are not actively looking)

Total: 21.6 million (12.9% of the labor force)

There are 2.7 job-wanters for each available job!

For more information and analysis, visit: www.njfac.org

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

 

Employment Statistics: NJFAN Tells the Whole Story 

The National Jobs for All Network’s monthly Real Count analysis of government employment statistics is posted on the network’s website at www.njac.org.  Since its founding in 1994, the National Jobs for All Network (previously Coalition) has been “telling the whole story” about unemployment.*

Our founders recognized that the official unemployment  rate reported monthly by the Labor Department leaves out more jobless and job short workers than it includes.  To be counted as unemployed, one must work less than one hour a week in paid employment and be actively seeking employment..  As the above figures show, more than half the unemployed or underemployed are left out of the official count. Consider the political consequences of this undercount—of a problem perceived by the public as less than half as widespread as it really is.

*See “Unemployment Statistics: Let’s Tell the Whole Story” by NJFAC founders Helen Lachs Ginsburg, Bill Ayres, and June Zaccone, Employment Statistics: Let’s Tell the Whole Story – NJFAC