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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBarclays Debunks The Greatest 'Urban Legend' Of The Labor Market
The unemployment rate has been falling precipitously over the past several months, from 9.1 percent last summer, to 8.3 percent as of the January reading. There's a good chance it will fall to 8 percent or lower very soon.
But the unemployment rate these days always seems to carry with it an asterisk, because detractors like to point to this number: The Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate.
...
All of this is a long way of getting to the fact that Barclays economists Dean Maki, Troy Davig, and Peter Newland have a brand new paper called Dispelling An Urban Legend, which blasts the idea that labor force participation is mostly being dragged down by depressed workforce exiles. Instead it's really mostly about the demographics.
Specifically, they write:
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/barclays-debunks-the-greatest-urban-legend-of-the-labor-market-2012-3
dmallind
(10,437 posts)Just like it would be silly to pretend that workers are not discouraged by the shifts in recent employment (not just number of jobs but location, type, and demands of the jobsthat exist), it would be silly to pretend that the aging population, retiring boomers and so on have no effect.
The graph of actual to projected participation shows a slightly steeper slope on the actual. The difference between the two is probably that urban legend - but yes it's absurd to say the whole decline is.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Bok_Tukalo
(4,323 posts)<OPE>
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)1946 + 66 = 2012