BW:
The latest Labor Dept. job-loss figures came out Friday, Mar. 27, and they were predictably grim: Seven states now have unemployment rates of 10% or higher. And next Friday, Apr. 3, economists expect the federal government to report that another 650,000 jobs disappeared nationwide in March.
Because the methods to gather unemployment haven’t kept pace with changes in the workforce, self-employed or freelance workers aren’t counted as laid off even if they lose most of their income. Over the past decade or so, many companies staffed up using more such outside workers to cut their costs for health-care and retirement benefits and to give them more flexibility to expand or contract with business. That flexibility, of course, means that assignments or pay are now shrinking for many of those people.
It isn’t just freelancers who fall beneath the radar of mainstream unemployment figures. Those referred to as “involuntary” part-time workers are also missing from the headlines. This category includes those who would like to work full time but are working fewer hours because their work has been cut back or because they have been unable to find full-time jobs. While these workers haven’t been laid off per se, they are losing a big part of their pay. In February, the number of people classified as working part time for economic reasons rose by 787,000, reaching 8.6 million. The number of such workers has risen by 3.7 million in the past year, almost doubling.
That U6 number? It stands at 14.8 percent—well above the official 8.1 percent rate.
