printThe Center for Immigration Studies: “While the current high rate of official unemployment is well known, it only includes those who have looked for work in the last four weeks. There is a broader measure of employment, referred to by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as U-6, which includes the unemployed and people who would like to work, but who have not looked for a job recently, as well as those involuntarily working part-time. This report examines the U-6 measure and finds that things are much worse than the official unemployment numbers imply. The situation is particularly bad for minorities, the young, and less-educated Americans. These are the workers who face the most competition from immigrants—legal and illegal. (All figures in this report are seasonally unadjusted and are from June 2009.)
Among the findings: * As of June 2009, the overall unemployment rate for native-born Americans is 9.7 percent, but the broader U-6 measure shows it as 16.3 percent. There are 12.7 million unemployed natives, but using the U-6 measure it is 21.7 million. … ”
I reported this earlier this month.
To the 21+ million, one should also add the numbers who are employed but in complete B.S. “stimulus” jobs and the figures get staggering.
One can also add parasitical jobs like Assistant to the Deputy Associate School Superintendent for Compliance Statistics of Dyslexic Left-Handed Hisplanics with the No Child Left Behind Act – and the figure gets really staggering. The few productive people are supporting the many.
Add all the state and federal regulations on the hiring and firing of workers in the US and Europe (plus maternity leave rights…) and one can see how much easier it is to farm the productive jobs out to Bangalore.
The weight of government regulation is simply immense. However the litigation tax is just as bad, regarding employment.
I recently worked for a company that after an employee was “written up” at least three times , then “counseled” he was allowed a paid day off to reflect on his desire to continue working for the company. All to avoid possible litigation. Getting rid of bad apples is onerous to say the least.