We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work.
Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifestyle or are burning the candle at both ends just to put food on the table. One of these enables folks to buy nonessentials and fund all those sectors of the economy, the other doesn't.
We have good metrics. The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture.
Your scenario would be called out by median household income, or better median disposable household income. Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case.
Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers, since you fall out of the count once unemployment benefits expire. However, we need to look at it by age bracket. Lower workforce participation between 20 and 60 is probably bad whereas higher workforce participation over 60 might also be bad.
IMO the problem isn't that the metrics aren't there but that the public discourse either lacks motivation, understanding or incentive to take a proper look. That every discussion of these numbers on social media has a substantial portion of people not understand the difference between median and mean certainly doesn't give me confidence this will ever improve.
> I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work.
This is captured as part of the "U-6" figure for unemployment. The thing is, at a large scale, these events don't matter. They are rare enough to be noise in the grand scheme of things.
The reason the U-3 is the canonical "unemployment rate" is because that is where the core signal is. The bulk of the change in all of the other more inclusive rates is the change in the U-3 scaled by some factor.
But really, your complaint has nothing to do with actual employment, but instead with earnings. Wages are also a metric captured and reported by the BLS and better serve your message.
You of course know that we have a diverse set of metrics for unemployment that capture all of what you are talking about right?
And that is before we talk about alternative signals like the ADP number this like references.
Anytime someone says “we need better ways” you should just read it as “I should do more reading”, because this is a very well studied, understood and measured set of data.
Of course we have alternative measures of unemployment but they're harder to measure and read.
There's something about the so-called "vibecession" - that people might be better at measuring their own circumstances than macroeconomic data provides. In hindsight this is sort of an obvious take.
Real wages and high quality full-time employment have declined, but more importantly wthat people use to measure well being such as career outlook and price of "joy" expenses (concert tickets, hobbies, travel etc.) has significantly contracted or outpaced inflation.
Lastly, rep. Ocasio-Cortez struck me with a description of this socio-economic climate on NPR's morning edition a while back. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5306406/alexandria-ocas...
In short, she noticed that "everything feels like a scam" - that is, digital distribution has enabled more complex fees, price discrimination, offerings are better optimized for profitability etc.
"To be sure, the ADP report has a spotty track record on predicting the subsequent government jobs report, which investors tend to weigh more heavily."
> We really need better ways of measuring economic health.
What would that look like to you? It seems to me no single, measurable metric is going to tell you economic health. They're a bunch of indicators that need to be interpreted.
The U6 unemployment rate is supposed to cover those who are underemployed. What is usually reported is the U3 unemployment rate which is closest to that used internationally as defined by ILO.
There are six kinds of unemployment stats the US tracks (below). Nothing sounds specific to underemployment by skills specifically (maybe u-6?). That would probably come from other metrics, like quintile income distributions shifting downwards?
You didn't ask, but just in case (from an internet search):
U-1: Long-term unemployed
* Definition: People unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percentage of the civilian labor force.
* Purpose: Measures persistent unemployment.
U-2: Job losers and temporary workers
* Definition: People who lost jobs or completed temporary jobs, as a percentage of the labor force.
* Purpose: Captures recent layoffs and temp contract ends.
U-3: Official unemployment rate (headline rate)
* Definition: Total unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force.
* Purpose: This is the standard "unemployment rate" reported in news and economic discussions.
* Definition: U-3 plus discouraged workers (those who want a job but stopped looking because they believe no jobs are available).
* Purpose: Adds a layer of marginal attachment to the labor force.
U-5: Unemployed + All marginally attached workers
* Definition: U-4 plus all others marginally attached to the labor force, not just discouraged workers.
* Marginally attached workers: People not currently working or looking for work but who want a job and have looked in the past 12 months (but not the past 4 weeks).
U-6: Broadest measure
* Definition: U-5 plus part-time workers who want full-time jobs (i.e., involuntary part-time workers).
* Purpose: The most comprehensive measure of labor underutilization, including: Discouraged workers, Marginally attached workers, and Underemployed part-timers
Goods-producing companies were net hirers (+32,000). Services lost 66,000 jobs, with losses concentrated in professional/business services (-56,000) and education/health services (-52,000).
Regionally, losses were concentrated in the West North Central Midwest (-28,000), South Atlantic (-21,000) and Mountain states (-20,000). (Map with old data [2].)
Firms with 1 to 50 employees and 250 to 499 employees laid people off while smaller mid-size and large companies were net hirers.
“Year-over-year pay growth for job-stayers was little changed for June at 4.4 percent compared to 4.5
percent in May. Pay growth for job-changers was 6.8 percent in June, down slightly from 7.0 percent last
month.” (Pay growth was highest in finance, +5.2%, and lowest in information services, +4.1%.)
I've applied casually to around 30 listings(I'm EU based) throughout last 2-3 months, all of which I was almost a perfect candidate for(9 years total exp). I received 2 automatic 'no's and 1 phone call + assignment for which I'm still waiting for a response. Everything else straight up ghosted me, not even confirmation emails of received resumes. Some of those companies even re-newed their listings afterwards. I feel like 80% of job listings are just straight up fake to keep VC's believing.
The ADP payroll report is noise. It is based on the payroll data from ADP only. The assumption of this report is that companies that use ADP to process their payroll are completely representative of the entire economy and that there is no regional, sector, or company stage bias to their customers. A firm with ADP laying employees off and 3 new firms with the same number of employees being founded and using a different payroll provider would be reported as a "loss" here. Maybe the private sector did lose jobs, but I wouldn't use this report to find out.
> But the contraction was capped by payroll expansions in goods-producing roles across industries such as manufacturing and mining. All together, goods-producing positions grew by 32,000 in the month, while payrolls for service roles overall fell by 66,000.
Just one data point to add -- the small firm (~150 ppl) I'm currently working at recently laid off 25 people. The reasoning was there are dark clouds in the horizon in the housing market (the company is related to real estate btw).
We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work.
Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifestyle or are burning the candle at both ends just to put food on the table. One of these enables folks to buy nonessentials and fund all those sectors of the economy, the other doesn't.
We have good metrics. The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture.
Your scenario would be called out by median household income, or better median disposable household income. Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case.
Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers, since you fall out of the count once unemployment benefits expire. However, we need to look at it by age bracket. Lower workforce participation between 20 and 60 is probably bad whereas higher workforce participation over 60 might also be bad.
IMO the problem isn't that the metrics aren't there but that the public discourse either lacks motivation, understanding or incentive to take a proper look. That every discussion of these numbers on social media has a substantial portion of people not understand the difference between median and mean certainly doesn't give me confidence this will ever improve.
> I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work.
This is captured as part of the "U-6" figure for unemployment. The thing is, at a large scale, these events don't matter. They are rare enough to be noise in the grand scheme of things.
The reason the U-3 is the canonical "unemployment rate" is because that is where the core signal is. The bulk of the change in all of the other more inclusive rates is the change in the U-3 scaled by some factor.
But really, your complaint has nothing to do with actual employment, but instead with earnings. Wages are also a metric captured and reported by the BLS and better serve your message.
You of course know that we have a diverse set of metrics for unemployment that capture all of what you are talking about right?
And that is before we talk about alternative signals like the ADP number this like references.
Anytime someone says “we need better ways” you should just read it as “I should do more reading”, because this is a very well studied, understood and measured set of data.
Of course we have alternative measures of unemployment but they're harder to measure and read.
There's something about the so-called "vibecession" - that people might be better at measuring their own circumstances than macroeconomic data provides. In hindsight this is sort of an obvious take.
Real wages and high quality full-time employment have declined, but more importantly wthat people use to measure well being such as career outlook and price of "joy" expenses (concert tickets, hobbies, travel etc.) has significantly contracted or outpaced inflation.
Author Eugine Ludwig wrote this great article for political a few months ago. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-...
Another article on what it means to be priced out of a hobby. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/04/hobby-inf...
Lastly, rep. Ocasio-Cortez struck me with a description of this socio-economic climate on NPR's morning edition a while back. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5306406/alexandria-ocas... In short, she noticed that "everything feels like a scam" - that is, digital distribution has enabled more complex fees, price discrimination, offerings are better optimized for profitability etc.
It sounds silly but we should take it one step further and look at life satisfaction. Who cares about jobs if people are unhappy?
Stay at home parents could be way more valuable than more Wall Street jobs.
The linked article is talking about ADP.
"To be sure, the ADP report has a spotty track record on predicting the subsequent government jobs report, which investors tend to weigh more heavily."
The BLS does do several measures.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une...
Their (BLS) news release also provides more detail.
Some of the unemployment metrics do include folks not actively looking for work: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
> We really need better ways of measuring economic health.
What would that look like to you? It seems to me no single, measurable metric is going to tell you economic health. They're a bunch of indicators that need to be interpreted.
That's why unemployment is one of many metrics, and we don't put all our weight into a single metric...
> and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same
Of course it would, the percentage of people unemployed would be the same.
> six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage
Average wages section of the jobs report would reflect this change.
> doesn't include those not actively looking for work
Participation rate section of the jobs report.
> Either way ...
Savings rate, hours worked, consumer credit, default rates etc cover all of this.
The U6 unemployment rate is supposed to cover those who are underemployed. What is usually reported is the U3 unemployment rate which is closest to that used internationally as defined by ILO.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE
There are six kinds of unemployment stats the US tracks (below). Nothing sounds specific to underemployment by skills specifically (maybe u-6?). That would probably come from other metrics, like quintile income distributions shifting downwards?
You didn't ask, but just in case (from an internet search):
U-1: Long-term unemployed
* Definition: People unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percentage of the civilian labor force.
* Purpose: Measures persistent unemployment.
U-2: Job losers and temporary workers
* Definition: People who lost jobs or completed temporary jobs, as a percentage of the labor force.
* Purpose: Captures recent layoffs and temp contract ends.
U-3: Official unemployment rate (headline rate)
* Definition: Total unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force.
* Purpose: This is the standard "unemployment rate" reported in news and economic discussions.
* Limitations: Doesn’t count discouraged workers or part-time workers wanting full-time jobs.
U-4: Unemployed + Discouraged workers
* Definition: U-3 plus discouraged workers (those who want a job but stopped looking because they believe no jobs are available).
* Purpose: Adds a layer of marginal attachment to the labor force.
U-5: Unemployed + All marginally attached workers
* Definition: U-4 plus all others marginally attached to the labor force, not just discouraged workers.
* Marginally attached workers: People not currently working or looking for work but who want a job and have looked in the past 12 months (but not the past 4 weeks).
U-6: Broadest measure
* Definition: U-5 plus part-time workers who want full-time jobs (i.e., involuntary part-time workers).
* Purpose: The most comprehensive measure of labor underutilization, including: Discouraged workers, Marginally attached workers, and Underemployed part-timers
The actual report: https://adp-ri-nrip-static.adp.com/artifacts/us_ner/20250702...
Goods-producing companies were net hirers (+32,000). Services lost 66,000 jobs, with losses concentrated in professional/business services (-56,000) and education/health services (-52,000).
Regionally, losses were concentrated in the West North Central Midwest (-28,000), South Atlantic (-21,000) and Mountain states (-20,000). (Map with old data [2].)
Firms with 1 to 50 employees and 250 to 499 employees laid people off while smaller mid-size and large companies were net hirers.
“Year-over-year pay growth for job-stayers was little changed for June at 4.4 percent compared to 4.5 percent in May. Pay growth for job-changers was 6.8 percent in June, down slightly from 7.0 percent last month.” (Pay growth was highest in finance, +5.2%, and lowest in information services, +4.1%.)
[2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FtCw0itWYAQSzri.png
I used to have multiple recruiters reach out to me daily on LinkedIn regarding software engineering positions.
And this was for multiple years.
That hasn't been the case for the last 3 or 4 months.
None of this surprises me and it shouldn't for others.
Important: "[payroll processing firm] ADP's report has a spotty track record on predicting the subsequent government jobs report"
I've applied casually to around 30 listings(I'm EU based) throughout last 2-3 months, all of which I was almost a perfect candidate for(9 years total exp). I received 2 automatic 'no's and 1 phone call + assignment for which I'm still waiting for a response. Everything else straight up ghosted me, not even confirmation emails of received resumes. Some of those companies even re-newed their listings afterwards. I feel like 80% of job listings are just straight up fake to keep VC's believing.
I'm about to lose my job too. The job market looks terrible.
The ADP payroll report is noise. It is based on the payroll data from ADP only. The assumption of this report is that companies that use ADP to process their payroll are completely representative of the entire economy and that there is no regional, sector, or company stage bias to their customers. A firm with ADP laying employees off and 3 new firms with the same number of employees being founded and using a different payroll provider would be reported as a "loss" here. Maybe the private sector did lose jobs, but I wouldn't use this report to find out.
> But the contraction was capped by payroll expansions in goods-producing roles across industries such as manufacturing and mining. All together, goods-producing positions grew by 32,000 in the month, while payrolls for service roles overall fell by 66,000.
Is this tariffs working as intended?
Just one data point to add -- the small firm (~150 ppl) I'm currently working at recently laid off 25 people. The reasoning was there are dark clouds in the horizon in the housing market (the company is related to real estate btw).
When the government is robbing all consumers with tariffs, more bad news will come …
ADP is usually off by a good amount. Wondering why the jobs report posted today isn't trending but this story still is? https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/stock-market-today-live-upda...
https://wellsfargo.bluematrix.com/docs/html/c42ca8a8-178f-40... | https://archive.today/BhC0n
This administration will drag this country into the gutter.
The fun part is when it's revised down 60,000 in two months.
For completeness, I would suppose those are USA jobs...
Not Canadian or EU or South America or SouthEast Asia etc etc jobs.
Is it too early to link that bad economic performance with the catastrophic management style of their current administration?
this confusing because it was posted that jobs were gained?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/business/what-to-know-abo...
At least the public sector is strong.
The media should be reporting U6 and labour force participation rate, not U3.
So rate cut incoming? :p
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