Independence Voice-A closer look at the unemployment picture

We received mixed news on the economy this month. On the one hand, real estate prices are up, GDP growth has improved, and the headline unemployment rate fell to 7.4%. On the other hand, a more detailed look at the unemployment situation reveals that we still have a long way to go to full recovery nationally.
 
Unemployment has improved but seems to be stuck at 7.4% nationally. Texas is faring better – the state unemployment rate is at 6.5%, Austin 5.4%, Houston 6.1%, DFW 6.6%, and San Antonio 6.7%. In July, only 92,000 of the 266,000 jobs created were full-time — just 35% of the total. You may wonder why the total number of jobs created isn’t 162,000, the number commonly used by news services. That number is calculated from the Labor Department’s survey of employers. The 266,000 is calculated from the department’s household survey. For the year through July, 953,000 jobs have been created, but only 222,000 were full-time – representing just 23% of the total job gains.
 
This caused a spike of 0.5 percentage points in U6 (considered a truer unemployment picture than what the media reports) to 14.3%. National GDP is up by to 1.7%.   Read more
 
Enjoy your Independence!