In a recent newspaper article it was stated that the unemployment rate in December dropped to 5.7 percent, the lowest level in 14 months, yet individuals who were previously searching for jobs gave up on their attempts. These particular individuals are said to be discouraged workers. However the unemployment rate is measured by the number of unemployed persons to the number of persons in the labor force. Discourage workers are not counted in the unemployment statistics because if they were the reported number of unemployed people would be larger, thus making the unemployment rate rise considerably.
             It was stated that almost 310,000 people left their jobs voluntarily last year yet only 277,000 jobs were added to the job market since July. In my opinion this would suggest that a large amount of individuals are also underemployed workers. Since fewer jobs are opening up there is a large chance that these could possibly be part time positions or temporary workers who want to be full time or permanent employees. Or college educated people working lower level jobs.
             In conclusion I believe this is a false rate basically because there is such a high number of discourage employees that are not taken into consideration in conjunction with the large amount of layoffs and business shut downs causing those who are searching for employment to settle for part time or lower level jobs due to the short supply of jobs available. In other words more jobs are closing than opening up.
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