Unemployment Rate
The last few weeks we have been discussing what's coming in 2010. We've covered GDP, interest rates and finally the banking crisis. Today, we are going to discuss jobs!
Jobs. They are important to all of us. The national unemployment rate is currently at 10%. It has slowly risen this year and is projected to continue rising into the first half of 2010. Could we see 12%? Maybe. Hopefully not.
Locally in the state line area, we have seen our unemployment rate skyrocket way past 15% in both Rock and Winnebago Counties. I recently read an article that said that the national unemployment rate formula was changed in the early 1990's. The article went on to say that if we still used the old formula, we would already be at a national unemployment rate in excess of 15%. The change in the formula dealt primarily with no longer counting people who have given up looking for a job. This is a large part of the currently unemployed. These people have lost their jobs, are on unemployment and have at least temporarily given up looking for a new job. As they have given up, they are still unemployed. Jobs have now become our #1 economic problem.
Let's hope as the economy slowly comes out of the Great Recession jobs will grow and the unemployment rate drops. Jobs are essential to economic growth, and these jobs need to be private sector jobs, not government jobs!