As bad as the data was yesterday, drill beneath the surface and you see the employment situation is actually worse than it appears.
Consider this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
graphic via BLS
“Of the 3.2 million reemployed displaced workers who lost full-time wage and salary jobs during the 2001-03 period, 2.6 million were working in such jobs in January 2004. (The remaining reemployed workers had part-time wage and salary jobs or were self-employed or unpaid family workers.)
Fifty-seven percent of workers who were displaced from full-time wage and salary jobs and who were reemployed in such jobs had earnings that were lower than those on the lost job. About one-third experienced earnings losses of 20 percent or more.”
Not good.
Source:
Monthly Labor Review
BLS, August 06, 2004
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2004/aug/wk1/art05.htm
Read it here first: New Jobs pay less
After kicking around the BLS website after Friday’s news release, I discovered Saturday that the BLS had found that “Fifty-seven percent of workers who were displaced from full-time wage and salary jobs and who were reemployed in such jobs had earnings…