"Part-Time Workers Mask Unemployment Woes"

Reads the headline in the NY Times.  We all know the labor market has done a serious nose-dive in the past year, but its actually worse than the primary government statistics on unemployment indicate. 

That's because the "official" rate that's published doesn't include "discouraged" workers who have dropped out of the labor force (stopped looking for work), and especially the "under-employed," such as persons working part-time instead of full-time, or working in full-time jobs they wouldn't even consider in better times.

June's "official" unemployment rate of 9.5% pales in comparison to the the U.S. Department of Labor's broadest measure (which include the part-time workers described above). For instance, in Michigan, California and Rhode Island, and Oregon, the rate exceeds 20%, or one in five workers in these states (and several other states aren't too far behind this 20% mark).

Most of the hardest hit states are more reliant on manufacturing, housing construction and other infrastructure-related industries.

Since the labor market tends to be a lagging indicator, which often continues to worsen even after the economy officially bottoms, nearly all economists agree that we won't see any significant improvements this year, even if the economy bounces off the bottom in the second half of 2009, as many are predicting today.

Please checkout the article if you're one of those twisted soles (like me!) who enjoys economics. There's a lot of good information in it.