Gallup: US unemployment worsens

Gallup shows US unemployment is rising, not falling

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/165926.html

A Gallup survey indicates that employment rate in the United States is not rising, thus damping hopes that the country's high levels of unemployment will reduce anytime soon.

The influential private organization's survey shows the unemployment rate rose to 10 percent in mid February from 9.8 percent at the end of January, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

The rise in the under-employment rate was largely the result of a sharp increase in the number of people working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the study found.

The US unemployment rate stands near last year's level of 19.8 percent.

Dennis Jacobe, chief economist at Gallup, said the surge in under-employment is "troubling," as current conditions in the job market have barely improved compared to how they were this time a year ago.

"This is not much to show for a year in which many macro-economic indicators showed improvement," Jacobe was quoted as saying.

Economists say creating jobs is a key to jumpstarting the crisis-hit US economy.

"The fact [is] that the true unemployment rate in the United States, as [economist] Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, is actually somewhere around 21 percent; not the 9 percent that has been advertised," former US Senate candidate Mark Dankof told Press TV.

Three years into the economic crisis, most economists still expect a painfully high unemployment rate of about 21% throughout 2011.