Press Releases
Washington, DC - The sharp drop of 232,000 jobs in the private sector of the economy in March underlines the urgent need for the Federal government to inject further stimulus to reverse the dismal economic situation. Gains of only 18,000 jobs in government, primarily at state and local levels resulted in the loss of 80,000 jobs overall, increasing the unemployment rate to 5.1%.
Closer scrutiny reveals that besides the 7,815,000 officially tallied unemployed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 4,914,000 workers able and willing to work full time but who were forced to take part-time employment because of poor economic conditions. This total is 629,000 larger than a year ago. Besides these underemployed, an additional 1,352,000 wanted to work, but because of various factors such as inadequate transportation or illness in the family could not take jobs.
When these workers are added to the official count, the “real rate” of unemployment reaches 9.2%. Even BLS acknowledges this in its table of “alternative measures of labor underutilization.”
"These very weak conditions point to the urgent need to strengthen the nation's unemployment insurance system as part of the government's economic stimulus plan," said Darryl Fagin, ADA Legislative Director.
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