U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits 10.2%, Highest in 26 Years | New York Times
Posted by Faiz on November 6th, 2009
“The biggest losses came in the construction, manufacturing and retailing sectors.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has noted that the unemployment rate is really 17.5% if the measure includes: “total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers (persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past), plus total employed part time for economic reasons (those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule), [plus discouraged workers (those who have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job)].”
November 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Thanks for the post, Faiz! The official unemployment rate in the USA hasn’t been this bad since early 1983. In Canada at that time it was around 13%.
I’ve also been tracking the unemployment rate in the top seven OECD countries. My data only go back to 1978, but the harmonized rate is around 8.3% today; the worst unemployment level my data show.
Now we’re in one of those typically irrational capitalist situations where the recovery is apparently underway, but unemployment is still climbing. We should be aware that capitalists will use the opportunity of the crisis to restructure production. In the latest example, 10,000 jobs are on the chopping block at Opel in Germany. Describing what he calls the ‘third phase of the crisis’ (i.e. rising unemployment), Strauss-Kahn of the IMF said somewhat disingenuously: “Imagine the worker in Germany or France who will lose his job in the months ahead. For that worker the crisis is not behind him, but still ahead.” This is the same fellow who opposed the 35-hour work week in France. We have to remember that unemployment and restructuring are all part of the ‘normal’ functioning of capitalism. We shouldn’t be led to believe that “if it just weren’t for these crises all would be OK.” Likewise, we shouldn’t believe that we could ever have a crisis-free capitalism.
In any case, we are only at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is in store for workers worldwide. This makes the need to adopt socialist policies ever more pressing. Capitalism and reformism are dead-ends for working people.