por admin » Vie Feb 03, 2012 11:13 am
Cada vez que el desempleo baja, los economicamente inteligentes hacen una pregunta clave: Que paso con la proporcion empleo-poblacion?
Bajo la definicion del gobierno, los desempleados se cuentan como los que actualmente estan buscando empleo. Entonces, cuando el desempleo cae, podria significar que mas desempleados encontraron mas trabajo, o tambien podria signficar que mas personas se resignaron a estar sin trabajo y ya no lo buscan. La proporcion del empleo-poblacion que mide cuantas personas estan buscando trabajos es dificil de enganiar.
Esto fue lo que paso:
De acuerdo al Census Bureau, la poblacion civil aumento en 1.5 millones en el 2011. Pero ese crecimiento se concentro entre las personas mayores de 55 anios y a los que tienen entre 16 y 24 anios. Ambos grupos no estan buscando empleo como los que estan en los mid 20s y menores de 50 anio. Por lo tanto la porcentaje de la poblacion que esta trabajando es menor a la que antes se pensaba. Tomando esto en consideracion el porcentaje del empleo-poblacion subio. El desempleo no se vio afectado.
" no hubo un gran aumento de trabajadores que ya no buscan empleo", comento Betsey Stevenson en twitter. "lo que paso es que el Dpto. de Censos encontro a un monton de gente vieja que se habia asumido muerta"
El ajuste tambien tiene otros efectos tambien. Eso hizo que el numero de desempleados parezca menor de lo que realmente es, y que el numero de loso que tienen empleo aparezca mas grande. Y por que el departamente del trabajo no ajusta la informacion para contar con los nuevos calculos, no es posible comparar las cifras de Enero en el empleo, desempleo u otras medidas con los meses anteriores.
February 3, 2012, 10:47 AM.What’s Behind the Unemployment Rate Drop?
By Ben Casselman
Whenever the unemployment rate drops, economically savvy observers know to ask a key question: What happened to the employment-population ratio?
Under the government’s definitions, people only count as unemployed when they’re actively looking for work. So when the unemployment rate drops, it could mean that unemployed people found jobs, or it could mean that they gave up looking for work. The employment-population ratio, which measures how many people are actually working, is harder to fool.
Today’s jobs report carries good news on both fronts. The unemployment rate fell, and the employment-population ratio rose. That means the improvement in the labor market is real — people actually found jobs.
The employment gain wasn’t immediately obvious to some observers because of a quirk in this month’s report. Every January, the Labor Department readjusts its data to account for changes in the population. The tweaks are especially significant in years like this one that take into account a new decennial census.
This year, the population adjustment makes it look like the employment-population ratio didn’t change from December to January. In reality, the ratio improved by 0.3 percentage points. The gains were just masked by the population adjustments.
Here’s what happened: According to the Census Bureau, the civilian population grew by 1.5 million people in 2011. But the growth wasn’t distributed evenly. Most of the growth came among people 55 and older and, to a lesser degree, by people 16-24 years old. Both groups are less likely to work than people in their mid-20s to early 50s. So the share of the population that’s working is actually lower than previously believed. Taking that into account, the employment-population ratio went up. The unemployment rate wasn’t affected.
“There was not a big increase in discouraged workers,” economist Betsey Stevenson commented on Twitter. “What happened was Census found a bunch of old people we had assumed died.”
The adjustments had other effects, as well. They made drop in the number of unemployed look smaller than it really was, and the rise in the number of employed look bigger. And because the Labor Department doesn’t readjust its historical data to account for the new calculations, it isn’t possible to compare January’s figures on employment, unemployment and similar measures to those from earlier months