Unemployment Drops Again as More Leave Workforce

(DALLAS, TX) – Reacting to another bad unemployment report, the president of the Job Creators Network said the official unemployment rate has become an irrelevant measurement for the health of the economy.

The January jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released this morning showed another downward tick for the unemployment rate – to 6.6 percent from 6.7 percent in December. But according to Alfredo Ortiz, president of the Job Creators Network, “the percentage of Americans participating in the labor force is in free-fall, rendering the official unemployment figure a meaningless measurement that can be dangerously misleading.”

“For two decades before 2009, at least two-thirds of American adults wanted work in the greatest economy on Earth,” Ortiz said. “Now the mighty American labor force is quietly but decisively walking away, while Washington is hypnotized by a false falling unemployment rate.”

The official jobless tally for January was 10.2 million unemployed. The labor force participation rate edged up slightly to 63 percent in January, still at lowest point since 1977. From 1989 until 2009, the participation rate had been at least 66 percent. If it were at 66 percent for January, more than six million additional unemployed people would be added to the official total, driving the official unemployment rate to more than 10 percent.

“The official number leaves out 40 percent of the truly idled workforce,” Ortiz said. “There’s nothing to celebrate about a larger share of a rapidly shrinking pie – that’s how a nation goes out of business.”

ABOUT JOB CREATORS NETWORK

Job Creators Network (JCN) is the voice of real job creators that has been missing from the debate on jobs and our economic crisis. JCN members talk about paychecks, not politics, helping the public and policymakers understand how to create jobs. For more information please visit www.JobCreatorsNetwork.com.