Patrick Kennedy

        Employment Situation for November 2015 has trends that seem to be helping the overall economy in ways such as unemployment rates decreasing, increasing EPOP, and an increasing Labor force Participation rate. Each of these components of the economy are equally important to measure the levels of employment for our country. Since the recession in 2008, these reports can help us determine the rates to improve the overall effectiveness of money. Unemployment was skyrocketing after 2008, but ever since we have been on an upward trend of employment, and downward trend in unemployment. If more people have more jobs, we can infer that they are willing to spend more of their money  in material goods and services, which helps boost the economy. All three of these criteria are improving, and have been on track to improving over the past few quarters and even the past few years. Just two years ago, the unemployment rate was around 7; today, we have full employment at a rate of 5.0. In the near future, I can see unemployment rate to hold or decrease due to the anticipated increased interest rates by the FED. Since banks will have less money, they are not willing to lend more out which cannot provide financial assistance to those in need of a loan. With less money in households, the less money they will spend; instead they will save the money because the money supply has decreased. 

           There are many categories or groups that are recorded to fully interpret these statistics. After reviewing the report, there are a few groups that stand out more than others. Over the past 50 years more women have entered the labor force and more men have left. This is interesting because society has realized that women are just as capable as men, but also because households are required to have more money due to price increases of goods and services. Having more people in the labor force means less people are leaving. Over the past year there were 586 thousand people who remained in the labor force. Even though more jobs have been created thorough part time work and increased minimum wages, more people are staying in their current labor force which decreased the number of new jobs available. Since retirement age was changed to 67, it has become even more difficult to get a new job because that job will be held for an additional two years. Thus, comparing number of employed men under the age of 16 has increased since they want to save money for school or the future. 20 year olds and older have the difference of almost 100,000 jobs compared to 16 year old because their time is consumed with school work and other obligations. 

       In the future year, I anticipate more economic growth because we have had a lot of time as a country to recover from the recession. Although the economy is not fully repaired, we’ve taken the right steps by adding more jobs to those who are seeking a job but also holding onto jobs for longer period of time. 

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf