Unemployment rate hits 10.2%

Here we go again.

When I logged on to find out the weather for today’s parade on Broadway — the Yankees celebrating their World Series win — the news headlines were not only surprising, they were shocking.

Just yesterday, I remember reading several news reports on the great recovering Wall Street is making.

Today, however, the headlines center around the 190,000 new jobs lost in October. That takes the unemployment rate to 10.6% — the highest in 26 years.

There’s always some lack of agreement about the accuracy of numbers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics may use a different definition of “unemployed” than the rest of the world. I guess that really doesn’t matter. Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of people who are not working.

There’s another side to the unemployment crisis that people don’t seem to be talking about. That is the number of people who are under-employed as a result of the economy. Those who are under-employed accept positions below their skill and experience levels. Previously they might have held a position as a manager. Now, they’re working in a clerical position.

Because something is better than nothing… because they have no other options… and because competition for jobs is so stiff, those who are under-employed accept positions that pay them less than they were used to earning before the economy tumbled.

People in business have their own challenges. Business these days is tough. Sales are down. Expenses are up. But people in their own business have greater flexibility than those who are under-employed. A business owner can become more aggressive with sales, find new ways to operate more efficiently, open new territories, find new products and services to offer, and so on.

The person who is unemployed or under-employed is stuck — waiting for someone else to take the initiative.

Who is at greater risk? The person who is unemployed? The person who is under-employed? Or the person who is self-employed?