Why is a 6% unemployment rate bad?

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I recently read news (that was presented in a very grim way) that a city’s unemployment rate rose to 6%.

So this means that out of all the people of working-age in that city, 94% of them were employed right?

Isn’t that a really good scenario? 94% is very close to 100% right?

I’m also surprised by this figure because the way the people are talking about the job market, it sounds like a huge number of people are unemployed and only a lucky few have jobs. Many people have said that about half of new-graduates cannot land their first job.

Am I missing something here?

In: Economics

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The 25 year old living with their parents who has given up on looking for a job doesn’t count as unemployed.

The person with a college degree working 25 hours a week at Walmart just so they can make partial payments on their student loans doesn’t count as unemployed.

The parent who decides to stay at home and be a full time homemaker because they can’t find a job that pays enough to cover child care and commuting expenses doesn’t count as unemployed.

For every 94 people with a job, any job, there are 6 people actively looking for work who can’t find it. Yes, that’s pretty bad. Not Depression level bad, but still bad.

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