Looking Beyond the Unemployment Rate

On this episode

About this episode

The unemployment rate has been hovering around 4.2%. But in today’s highly unsettled economy, many people feel this headline number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t capture their economic struggles — from slow hiring to working two part-time jobs to recent graduates unable to find work in their fields. But as economist Kathryn Edwards points out, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also measures underemployment (currently 7.9%) as well as discouraged workers and many other indicators of labor market slack. But there’s one thing the government probably should not measure, and that’s skills mismatch, or being “overqualified” for the job you have. In this episode, we also go way,…