What is the Jobless Rate?
In theory, the jobless rate is defined as the percentage of individuals seeking employment and not being able to find a job. In the 1940s, the American government defined a job as any paid work performed in the previous week. An individual should have been actively seeking employment during the previous month to be officially counted as unemployed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics still defines unemployment in those terms today.
The labor participation rate is the percentage of adults, age 16 and older, either working or looking for work. However, in today's economy many millions of would be workers have stopped looking for work and some of them will never find employment. This means that the "real" unemployment rate is approximately two percentage points higher than the official rate. Today long-term unemployment for many individuals hoping to find work may cause permanent damage to our economy and interfere with a happy lifestyle for millions of unemployed individuals.
Why Aren't More Employers Hiring?
Evidence points to the fact that companies are taking a longer time to fill job openings leaving the long-term unemployed struggling to find work. Professor Peter Cappelli of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business offers his opinion on why he thinks so many people are having difficulty finding employment during the recent economic recovery. He explains that the level of hiring demand hasn't increased due to the slow financial sector recovery.
There is little incentive for hiring managers to fill positions because their hiring expectations are high. Hiring managers want to hire individuals with recent experience and these individuals are already employed at other companies. Another reason is the lack of available recruiters to convince hiring managers to lower their expectations of the qualifications of prospective employees. Companies have limited the resources to train new employees refusing to spend money on job training. Hiring remains slow in spite of the fact that corporations are amassing large profits because these companies are relying upon current employees to assume the duties of increasing workloads. Companies are reluctant to begin hiring new employees because they are not certain that they will continue to make a profit in the future.
What are the Options for Unemployed Workers?
If the concept of having a job is disappearing from today's economy, then what options does an unemployed individual have in the future? In his book "JobShift", William Bridges outlines a strategy of prospering in the workplace without the concept of jobs. Alternatives to finding a new position with an employer include starting a business, becoming an artist or a consultant, working in a freelance capacity or working part-time. Job security comes from within a person rather than in a position with an employer. Employability revolves around possessing the abilities and attitudes desired by a prospective employer when needed. Workers should consider themselves external vendors hired to perform a specific task. Resiliency is the ability to learn new skills, to bounce back quickly from disappointment, live with high levels of uncertainty and to find inner peace and security from within.
Increasingly workers have to adjust to the new economy of today. Sara Horowitz, the founder and Executive Director of Freelancer's Union, is an advocate of the role independent workers will play in the emerging economy of today and the future. She writes about the need to build a strong social sector based on models similar to cooperatives. The members share in the ownership and profits of the established cooperative. Social-purpose institutions, nonprofits, community-development organizations, a new labor movement and other collaborative networks should be created based on the peer economy infrastructure. The new economic peer ecosystem includes a non-profit side, sustainable for-profit businesses, corporate certification programs and the cooperative movement. All of these sectors will become connected in the new economy for mutual sharing of ideas regarding the changing roles of workers in the new economy.
More and more companies and other organizations are relying upon contractors, temporary and part-time workers rather than hiring full-time salaried employees to limit spending costs while at the same time maximizing profits. The workplace of tomorrow will be very different from today or even ten to twenty years ago. Each worker should learn to be self-reliant and look for job security within himself or herself rather than depending upon any one company or organization. The concept of staying with one or two employers until retirement is changing. Workers will have to adapt to the new reality of the new economy in the future.
Sheila D. Koester is a freelance writer specializing in writing affordable quality custom content for small businesses according to client needs and expectations. Please visit her portfolio located at https://soradina.contently.com/ for additional freelance writing samples. Contact information is available by clicking on the CV link below her name.
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