The Unemployed vs. The Underemployed

[caption id="attachment_2919" align="alignleft" width="403" caption="Unemployment vs.Underemployed "][/caption]

Can the job market get any worse than it already is? Turns out, it can. With the unemployment rate worse than it was before, finding a job can be like climbing a mountain...a very steep mountain with many obstacles. But there is one thing that is holding the unemployed back from finding a job. Paul Wiseman and Christopher Leonard of the Associated Press discuss more:

The job market is even worse than the 9.1 percent unemployment rate suggests.

America's 14 million unemployed aren't competing just with each other. They must also contend with 8.8 million other people not counted as unemployed -- part-timers who want full-time work.

When consumer demand picks up, companies will likely boost the hours of their part-timers before they add jobs, economists say. It means they have room to expand without hiring.

And the unemployed will face another source of competition once the economy improves: Roughly 2.6 million people who aren't counted as unemployed because they've stopped looking for work. Once they start looking again, they'll be classified as unemployed. And the unemployment rate could rise.

Intensified competition for jobs means unemployment could exceed its historic norm of 5 percent to 6 percent for several more years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the rate to exceed 8 percent until 2014. The White House predicts it will average 9 percent next year, when President Barack Obama runs for re-election.

The jobs crisis has led Obama to schedule a major speech Thursday night to propose steps to stimulate hiring. Republican presidential candidates will likely confront the issue in a debate the night before.

The back-to-back events will come days after the government said employers added zero net jobs in August. The monthly jobs report, arriving three days before Labor Day, was the weakest since September 2010.

Combined, the 14 million officially unemployed; the "underemployed" part-timers who want full-time work; and "discouraged" people who have stopped looking make up 16.2 percent of working-age Americans.

Read more at Yahoo Finance