America's Employment Outlook

Report Outline
Current Labor Market
The High-Technology Era
White-Collar Work Force
Structural Unemployment
Special Focus

Current Labor Market

High Unemployment Linked to Recession

At a recent afl-cio conference in washington, D.C., former Vice President Walter F. Mondale stated that the three biggest issues facing Americans today were “jobs, jobs and jobs.” Later the same day, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., told the unionists that the most important issues facing Americans were “jobs, jobs and more jobs.” This rhetorical replay may have been amusing, but there is nothing funny about the current employment situation in the United States. As the recession drags on, unemployment has reached a post-Depression high. The April unemployment rate of 9.4 percent, as measured by the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, was the highest since 1941. Not since 1938 have as many as 10.3 million job-seekers been unable to find work.

These numbers do not tell the whole story: 5.8 million people are working only part time and 1.3 million are so-called “discouraged” workers, who have at least temporarily given up the job search. Certain segments of the population have been hit particularly hard. Black unemployment is 18.4 percent, black teen-age unemployment 48.1 percent, and Hispanic joblessness 12.5 percent. Unemployment in the goods-producing sector also is in double digits: construction, 19.4 percent; agriculture, 14.6 percent; and manufacturing, 11.3 percent. The impact has been harshest in the industrial Great Lakes and Midwest states and the timber-reliant Northwest states (see map, p. 390). The deep slump in the auto industry has put Michigan, with a 15 percent unemployment rate, on a near-depression footing

According to a recent Gallup poll, unemployment has become Americans' greatest worry. Of those surveyed, 44 percent called unemployment the country's greatest problem, followed by inflation at 24 percent. Eighty-five percent of the respondents said they would take a 10 percent pay cut to avoid a layoff and 77 percent said they would be unlikely to find a comparable job if they were laid off. For the first time in generations, a large majority of Americans appear pessimistic about financial and career growth, for themselves and for the work force at large.