Employment situation
• Review/Print pages 1 – 8 and answer the following questions for next Monday’s class.
Questions on the Labor Force from the Household Survey
• What was the official unemployment rate reported for January 2013 and the total number of unemployed workers?
• How many people worked part-time for economic reasons (involuntary part time workers)?
• How many people were marginally attached to the labor force?
• How many were discouraged workers?
• How many people were classified as long term unemployed – unemployed for 27 weeks or more?
• Look at page 7 of the release. What were the unemployment rates by each level of educational attainment (what were the rates for those with less than H.S., H.S. diploma; some college, bachelor’s degree or higher)? How did these compare with the rates in January 2012?
Click on the following link: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000/ to answer the following:
• Look at the table that follows the graph. What was the labor force participation rate in January 2013? How has this rate changed from January 2003?
Questions on Payroll jobs from the Establishment Survey
Go to page 7 of the Employment Situation Summary and look specifically at the last column in the table – January 2013. This column indicates changes in employment overall and by industry from the previous month.
• How many (seasonally adjusted) payroll (non-farm) jobs were created in January 2013 from the previous month?
• How many jobs were added or lost specifically in each of the following major industry categories from May – June 2012?
1. manufacturing
2. construction
3. professional and business services
4. financial services
5. government
6. Education and health services
7. temporary help services
8. government?
PART II
Go to http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm (Table A-15 Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization) and answer the following questions:
1. Which one of the six measures of unemployment represents the official measure used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics?
2. By how much did this official measure change from June 2011 to June 2012?
3. Of all of the measures in the table – U1 through U6 – which one shows the greatest decline (use seasonally adjusted data) from June 2011 – June 2012?
4. If marginally attached workers, discouraged workers, and those who are working part-time for economic reasons were included in the official unemployment rate, what would that rate have been for June 2012? Which of the six measures reflects this rate?
PART III
Read the article that is included with this assignment, “From Free Fall to Stagnation,” by Josh Bivens, Andrew Fieldhouse and Heidi Shierholz, and provide clearly explained answers to the following questions.
1. Read pages 1 – 4 of this article and then answer the following: What do the authors – Bivens, Fieldhouse and Shierhoz – identify as the main reasons for continuing stagnant economic growth since the onset of the ‘Great Recession’ in 2008?

2. Now look at pages 14 – 16 of the same article: The authors discuss the issue of the relationship between strong GDP growth and a strong recovery. What does their argument suggest about the relationship between strong GDP growth, the deficit and reducing unemployment?

3. According to Bivens, Fieldhouse and Shierholz, what would it take to return to a full recovery?

4. After having read the article and having researched the employment and unemployment data here, what would you conclude about the reasons for weak economic growth since the official end of the recession?

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