The official unemployment rate calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics excludes people who have not actively sought a job in the preceding four weeks, as they are no longer considered part of the civilian labor force." - from this article
How does that work? You still need money to survive but you’ve given up looking for work? You can’t be on welfare forever - how do those folks survive?
People who take jobs under the table, people who go back to school full-time, people who live with parents, people who are stay-at-home parents… the list goes on.
The independently wealthy, stay at home parents, the disabled, the kids who stay at home after school and are still supported by parents, people who make their money in illegal ways, the list goes on.
Unless they are supported by their spouse, family or got an inheritance they dont.
But since these Labor Bureaus are typically terrible at helping people back into employment and it is not their job to do so, playing around with the statistics is what they do. Their actual job in most countries it to create a hostile and degrading environment for unemployed people, so people are more fearful of losing their jobs and accept shitty work conditions and wages.
Here (Germany) for instance you have to submit a sick note to them, so they take you out of the “job seeker” statistic, as you are sick and for the days you are sick you couldn’t work, so you wouldn’t be employed for these three days.
In the same wake they like to put you in “qualification courses” that often have no point to any employment or are piss poor, e.g. how to do additions in excel. Again the point of these is not to help you get back to work, but to make you fearful of unemployment, before you lose your job. But since they cannot officially communicate that as there goal, they entangle it with the target metric, so the bureau employees are motivated to degrade the unemployed people.
how do those folks survive?
Homeless camps.
That’s a shitty oversimplification and not a good joke, and you should feel shitty - all due respect.
edit: the fact that this is even mildly downvoted only showed how little constructive interaction that this Lemmy community has with those struggling with houselessness, and it saddens me, honestly.
Sorry you took it that way. I did not mean it as a joke but an honest and very grim reality for many.
It was glib, and not at all indicative of the majority reason(s) for why people stop looking for work. Moreover, it only further stigmatizes the unemployed with its mislabeling of them. As one who overcame houselessness, I can speak from a very real and intimate knowledge of the experience, and would’ve appreciated a little more effort in conveying your meaning to increase awareness and avoid confusion.
I can speak from a very real and intimate knowledge of the experience,
As can I.
I am sorry you have had this experience that but that does not give you supreme authority over how I am allowed to comment about things I have experienced.
The fact remains that your comment, in its imprecision, alludes that houselessness is one of the leading factors behind people no longer seeking work and what’s more, insinuates that those challenged with such an incredibly difficult life event do not work at all.
No one has “supreme authority” over your comments other than you, and that’s why the onus remains with you, while those around you can only suggest you improve.
@inkican I suspect many of them decide to return to school for degrees / certifications?
