The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 73/No. 16      April 27, 2009

 
24 million in United States
jobless or forced part-time
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
Unemployment rose to 8.5 percent, or 13.2 million workers, the U.S. Department of Labor reported April 3. That is up from 8.1 percent a month earlier.

The March figure does not include the 2.1 million “marginally attached” workers—those the government does not count because it says they haven’t looked for work over the past four weeks. Nor does it count the 9 million forced into part-time work. These two categories bring the total to more than 24 million workers—15.6 percent—unable to get full-time jobs.

The unemployment rolls increased in March by 694,000. Since the recession began in December 2007, the bosses have cut 5.1 million jobs, more than 2 million of these over the past three months. Those without jobs are having increasing difficulty finding any work, with 3.2 million unemployed for six months or more, up 265,000 from March.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home