Hidden Unemployment

People performing odd jobs for just one hour per week and paid at least $20 –
again, not included.
People working part-time, but who want full-time or who are underemployed
(senior people working more entry-level jobs….you guessed it: Not Included!
A blog post on Money Crashers.com brought up some other important factors that
contribute to creating a misleading unemployment rate such as:
The household survey size used (60,000 households) is too small, which often
does not accurately represent the big picture.
Millions of people are not represented in the data collected including:
Recent graduates who are not yet looking for work
People who just lost their jobs, but who were employed the week of the
survey
Workers on temporary leaves or disabled workers still in transition from a
former job they are no longer able to work
People working jobs that do not pay them enough to survive (but they are
technically “working”).
People with multiple jobs are often counted more than once, throwing off the
correct number of employed workers.
My Story
I am a perfect example of people not included in the unemployment statistics. After
months of seeking work, I decided to go back to school because I couldn’t find a job.
After a couple of years of going to school, I developed several chronic illnesses and I
was unable to work or go to school. With no way to support myself, I also became
homeless. While living at the homeless shelter, I met others in the same situation,
including people with felonies who were unable to find work due to their criminal history
and people like me, who just couldn’t find jobs and eventually became homeless. From
personal experience, I can tell you that not having a home makes finding and keeping a
job very difficult.
About this time, I thought I would never find a way out of homelessness and
joblessness, but then I found Daily Work and I started to get the help I needed. Change
didn’t happen right away, because by now, I had a lot of struggles facing me – I was in
poor health, homeless and, I was losing hope for the future.
But Daily Work did not give up on me. They helped me feel hope again and the services
they told me about gave me the boost I needed to stabilize my health and living
situation so I could start building a new foundation for a successful life.
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