Nowadays, the news of the economy recovering and the recession being finally over seems to be bombarding us very much. But has the economy really recovered? Think about the huge percentage of unemployed people in the country. A few months ago, it shot up to about 10 % and has remained there till now, when the year has almost come to end. With so many people not able to earn their livelihood would you call this recovery in the true sense of the word? A Mintblog infographic finds out why there is a disparity between the official numbers of unemployed people and the number actually unemployed.

An interesting observation is that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics you may not be counted amongst the unemployed heads if you’ve lost your job during the economic depression because you are not considered an unemployed person by the Bureau. To a certain extent, that may be correct as you are very employable considering your employability status, unlike the conventionally unemployed, who are out of employment for reasons other than the recent recession. The chances of your being included in the official unemployment rate are thus unlikely.

The reasons for which you are officially labeled employed or employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are truly amazing! Lets take a look at them one by one:

1. If you have lost your job and are not searching for a new one then you are neither employed nor employed. You are not considered unemployed because you are not in the job market anyway!
2. If you’ve lost your job and haven’t got one but are looking for one, you qualify to be a member of the list of the officially unemployed. Again if you’ve been actually looking for a job but haven’t found one for more than a year now, you are considered a part of the neither employed nor employed category and are considered out of the job market.  But if its not yet one year since you’ve  given up looking for a job, you may be unemployed in reality,  but not officially unemployed
3. If you’ve lost a full time job and landed up with a part time job, you are still employed, if you’ve not made any efforts to search for a full time job. It doesn’t matter if the pay you get is just a fraction of what you used to get. Even if you’ve been searching for a full time job and have landed up with a temporary job, you are considered unemployed but not officially!

If news of 10 % unemployment rate is not good news for you, what would you say if you came to know that 10 % is just the percentage of the officially unemployed? The number of unemployed Americans is much much more than that! The U3 rate includes those who did not find employment to their full capacity. The U6 rate that includes the discouraged and underemployed people is not taken into the official counting of the unemployed in 17.2 % now. So, with so much of human skill being wasted and people being compelled to lead a penurious life, the economy is really showing signs of recovery eh?