rickholio

The way you guys count 'unemployed' is unusual. While not unique to the US, the methods of calculating this near-mythical figure are byzantine and not used by most countries (I believe South Korea uses a similar system.)

In many countries, the "unemployed" are defined as people of working age in society who are capable of working but cannot or will not. This basically entails every man and woman out of school, not in jail and not disabled that doesn't have a job. (This is a simplification of course as there are actually many types of unemployment... agricultural workers who have nothing to do in the winter, for example, but who will have jobs for the rest of the year.)

In the US, the unemployed are only people who are actively seeking work. You can be, for instance, on employment insurance and not be considered 'unemployed' if you're not actively seeking work in that time period.

This is the reason why more people can be out of work, yet the 'unemployment rate' can go down. A great many people out there become 'discouraged workers', people who have given up on looking for work believing no jobs are available for them... If you happen to be out of work and decide to strike off as an independant contractor in an attempt to find work, that also removes you from being considered unemployed... and so forth.

This doesn't even touch on long term unemployed, the underemployed (people with part time jobs that provide no meaningful financial support), et al.

Keep in mind that unemployment is actually a GOOD thing for an economy as a whole. Moderate levels of unemployment work to keep wages under control. The existance of social fallback programs (unemployment insurance) and certain types of low-paying jobs (McJobs) work symbiotically to ensure sufficient workforce availability to those lowest-echelons while giving workers a fallback when turnover happens.

In the end, people who follow economic policy realise that the advertised unemployment rate is little more than a bit of political hocus-pocus to be used as a talking point on networks greedy for easy-to-digest fiscal news. It's unfortunate in that it misleads the ignorant into thinking one thing when, objectively, the opposite is true.

The cognative dissonance can be summed up in one simple Q + A:

Question: "How can the rate of people out of a job go down when there's only 150,000 jobs created, and 300,000 new jobs are needed every month just to keep up with kids entering the work force?"

Answer: "It can't."

HTH.