Case of the Vanishing Worker

[former9thward]

Unemployment rate is falling in industrial Midwest as residents move away, retire or give up on finding a job.

DECATUR, Ill.—By one key gauge of economic health, this industrial city three hours south of Chicago is well on the way to recovery.

Hit hard by the recession, when its unemployment rate topped 14%, Decatur over the past year has seen one of the swiftest declines in joblessness in the country, with the rate dropping to 7% in March from 10.2% a year earlier.

But look closer, and this city of 75,000 resembles many communities across the industrial Midwest, where the unemployment rate is falling fast in part because workers are disappearing: moving away, retiring or no longer looking for a job.

“In cases like that, the unemployment rate makes things look better than they really are,” said Karl Kuykendall, U.S. regional economist at IHS Global Insight. In terms of overall economic growth, he said, “a decline in population and workforce is devastating.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/case-of-the-vanishing-worker-1431299722?KEYWORDS=case+of+the+vanishing+worker

This is a point many try to ignore about our "recovery".

[whatthehey]

1. Except U6 is also falling, and the LFPR has been stable for nigh 2 years

If people want/need to leave Decatur to work, then that's hardly a national issue is it? Do we really want a control economy that must maintain all industries in all areas in a kind of updated serfdom so people do not move around? Labor migrations are not new in the US, and far larger ones happened with far lower safety nets and far fewer transportation options.

[former9thward]

2. Well the person featured in the article

is going to North Carolina for a lower paying job. So people taking lower paying jobs when they had good ones is a national issue.

[closeupready]

3. I've been to Decatur, and why would anyone the least bit ambitious

stay there? The cost of living is relatively low, so I get why unemployed older workers there decide to retire, but if you are young, educated, and energetic, you're going to be stifled trying to build a life there. IMO.