Fema Employment
Should we factor in the quality of the job when determining the unemployment rate?
I am a recently retired scientist in the Silicon Valley of California. the official government numbers say that we have a very low unemployment rate. Many of the Car washes, McDonald's hamburger stands and Convenience stores have signs that say "now hiring" or "help wanted" Approximately one third of the people that I know in the scientific and engineering sector of the economy have lost their jobs in the last few months. It appears to me that the hiring of minimum wage jobs is masking the number of scientists and engineers that are losing their jobs. Even though the official unemployment numbers look good, engineering jobs are being replaced by minimum wage jobs. I suspect that this indicates severe problems for the economy that are not reflected in the official government unemployment numbers. should we have an indes that reflects the unemployment levels in different sectors of the economy rather than one number? Would this give us a more accurate picture?
Public Comments
- Yes and we should also count the long term unemployed. Why is someone whose been looking for a job for 6 months or a year no longer unemployed? (Answer: because it makes the government look better.)
- This is a good concept, but I don't know how it could be implemented to be accurate.
