Freakonomics Blog poster Justin Wolfers poses and interesting and somewhat scary number that is more worrisome than unemployment. Aggregate working hours. The U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent today and will probably go much higher in the next year.
However, the real issue is total working hours in the United States (or the world), which have diminished severely. So, lets say one person is fired and is now unemployed, how many others work weeks were cut back to 30 or even 20 hours? The people working less hours are not as easily included into the unemployment lot.
However, the real issue is total working hours in the United States (or the world), which have diminished severely. So, lets say one person is fired and is now unemployed, how many others work weeks were cut back to 30 or even 20 hours? The people working less hours are not as easily included into the unemployment lot.
The purple line (private total hours worked) dips the lowest whereas the black line is more a reflection of unemployment although it measures payrolls. Check out freakonomics.com for this graph and more in-depth information.
No comments:
Post a Comment