How Unemployment Numbers and New Job Numbers Are Flawed and Over Inflated

We are constantly told about new jobs that are being created across the United States. With this overabundance of new jobs that are being announced by the Local, State, and National Governments, one might think that the economy will be in an upswing soon. This could not be further from the truth since there is so much information that is not told to us.

The current unemployment rate is around 4.5% for the United States. Most of the new jobs that have been created do not come close to the ones that workers lost in the first place.

In Michigan, thousands of autoworkers have lost their jobs over the last few years. Many of these workers were bringing in a steady income that was in the neighborhood of about $50,000-$60,000 a year. These workers also had comprehensive healthcare plans, and many other benefits before they lost their jobs.

Many of these workers struggled to find new jobs. They went to work for retail companies just to be able to pay some of their bills, and to put food on the table.

These new jobs are only paying them a fraction of what they were making before. Their new jobs are not leaving them with any extra money to invest, so this weakens the economy.

Many of these former autoworkers have had to take two or three jobs to pay the bills that they have. These people are not taken into consideration when we are told how many new jobs were filled in our area.

There was recently an estimate done for the Detroit area that stated that about 42% of Metro Detroit workers had two or more jobs. This does not leave very much for those that are truly out of work.

Another aspect that is not taken into account when we have new job totals is that many of these new jobs are highly technical jobs that most people do not qualify for. Whenever a technology company moves into a new area, they advertise for highly skilled workers.

These new jobs are put into the total for new jobs even though the people that are taking these new jobs are just leaving an already fruitful job for the new one. At times, large technology companies can hire up to a thousand new workers with only a small percentage of the jobs being ones that the average person could qualify for.

The next time you see high totals for new jobs being created, be leery of what you read. Chances are good that the numbers are over inflated or flawed.