For millions of people, getting the day off on Labor Day isn’t a problem. The unemployment numbers are in the double digits in many states, 9.7 at latest count for the United States. Sadly, as pointed out in the New York Times article Out of Work and Too Down to Search On, statistics don’t capture people who have given up.
"In the most direct measure of job market hopelessness, the [Bureau of Labor Statistics] has a narrow definition of a group it classifies as “discouraged workers.” These are people who have looked for work at some point in the past year but have not looked in the last four weeks because they believe that no jobs are available or that they would not qualify, among other reasons. In August, there were roughly 758,000 discouraged workers nationally, compared with 349,000 in November 2007, the month before the recession officially began."
Reading the stories of the people in this article got me thinking. In response I wrote this piece for PsychCentral. Please take a look.
