There has been a lot of murmur and response to the new unemployment rates that were released on Friday Dec. 2. According to numbers provided by the labor department, the unemployment rate in the U.S. dropped to 8.6 percent in November from 9.0 percent in October. Although this is a significant decrease, experts say that the labor market still has an uphill battle ahead of them in order to fully recover from the financial crisis.
Some of the statistics given are not as promising as they appear.? For example, less than one third of the 8.8 million jobs that were lost have been recovered.? In addition to these numbers, half of the unemployment rate decrease is due to workers who have given up on searching for jobs completely. Last month 120,000 jobs were created, however most were in retail- an industry that affords really low wages.? By and large, wages are down across the country and thus far the federal cost of unemployment benefits totals $434 billion.
Read more at CNN Money.
