Labor Day Ironies

Yes, Labor Day is technically for big-L labor, unions, trade organizations, and the like. But, if we think about little-L labor, then today becomes a little more ironic.

The unemployment rate for the US is at 9.7% right now, marking its highest point in a quarter of a century. For some perspective, it's roughly at the level that it was during the nation's second-worst economic crisis (the Panic of 1837), although statistics from that period aren't exactly what one would describe as reliable, so this whole sentence may as well be moot.

Jobs are still being lost on a month-to-month basis. Although the rate of losses has slowed relatively to earlier in the year, the situation is a little like telling a trauma patient the good news that he's losing blood a little less quickly now that most of it has drained out of his body.

A more relevant statistic for the sake of discerning the situation on the ground is the "actual unemployment rate," which is, if you think about it, a ridiculous moniker. What's the good of having a statistic if it's not the "actual" statistic? Wouldn't it make sense to have the "actual unemployment rate" be termed the "unemployment rate," and have the current "unemployment rate" be referred to "unemployment, adjusted to make it look better." It seems we need four categories: lies; damn lies; statistics; statistics plus the influence of politicians and the English language. Wharrgarbl. (Read here for the specifics, if you're interested. The general gist is that the official unemployment rate only counts you as unemployed if you're seeking a job and don't have one. The "actual" rate goes beyond that by also counting as "unemployed" those who are working less than they'd like by being able to take fewer or shorter shifts, those who work on an as-needed basis that haven't been called in recently, and those who have decided that finding a job is a pretty ridiculous endeavor and have given up for the time being altogether.)

(Whoa-ho, tangent time--I suppose one could theoretically consider those that are working fewer hours than they would like not particularly unemployed. By doing this, though, one would discount the possibility that a given person is taking on a job that has little to do with their career for the sake of making some money to get by, all the while stonewalling their ability to seek out and obtain the kind of employment they would like, probably on a full-time basis. While this may not constitute a particularly large proportion of such workers, those whose stories mirror this example are essentially "discouraged" workers in a different sense. Furthermore, discounting these groups would have the effect of essentially throwing out anyone that has a job on paper but is only able to earn a pittance as a result of say, working per-diem and not getting called in but once in the past week. I guess maybe we should change the wording to "unemployment/underemployment rate" or something of the sort to be be perfectly accurate. Oh wait, I meant "actual rate of unemployment/underemployment. My bad.)

In any case, this more-accurate assessment about Americans and work puts the percentage of people not working or working less than they would like at 16.8%. That's pretty close to one in six. A lot of media outlets are throwing the words "jobless recovery" around, which amounts to more self-obfuscation. What kind of recovery is it for someone that can't find a job? It's effectively like telling someone with broken wheels on their car about the wonderful recent advances in tire technology.

Labor Day is generally labor-less, being a federal holiday and all. But to an extent greater than the past two decades and then some, the weeks around Labor Day are also quite lacking in labor.

Further reading that will be depressing and educational at the same time (the best kind, if you ask me.)