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Number of discouraged workers down by 133,000 from last year, April 2013

May 07, 2013

Among those persons marginally attached to the labor force in April 2013, there were 835,000 discouraged workers—a decrease of 133,000 workers from a year earlier.

Persons not in the labor force by desire and availability for work, April 2013
Persons not in the labor force by desire and availability for work, April 2013
  

Total not in the labor force

90,436,000

Do not want a job now(1)

84,107,000

Want a job

6,329,000

Did not search for work in previous year

3,196,000

Searched for work in previous year(2) but not in past 4 weeks

3,133,000

Searched for work in the previous year but not available to work now

786,000

Marginally attached (available to work now)

2,347,000

Discouraged over job prospects

835,000

Reasons other than discouragement

1,512,000

Footnotes:
(1) Includes some persons who are not asked if they want a job.
(2) Persons who had a job in the prior 12 months must have searched since the end of that job.
 

 

In April 2013, a total of 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged from April 2012.  Other than discouraged workers, an additional 1.5 million persons were also marginally attached to the labor force.  These persons had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the household survey for reasons such as school attendance, family responsibilities, and health.

Among those who wanted a job in April 2013, aside from persons marginally attached to the labor force, 3.2 million individuals did not search for work in the previous year and 786,000 persons searched for work in the previous year but were not available to work now.

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are not seasonally adjusted. Persons that are marginally attached to the labor force are individuals that were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months, but not in the last 4 weeks. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation — April 2013," (HTML) (PDF) news release USDL-13-0785.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Number of discouraged workers down by 133,000 from last year, April 2013 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130507.htm (visited April 26, 2024).

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