July: 988,000 'Discouraged' Americans Concluded There Were No Jobs for Them

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(CNSNews.com) – There were 988,000 discouraged workers in the United States in July, an increase of 136,000 from July 2012, according to data released today the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

“Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them,” the BLS explains.

While the overall unemployment rate declined to the lowest rate since December 2008 at 7.4 percent, those not in the labor force remains near an all-time high at 89,957,000. The previous high was 89,967,000 in March of this year.

The number of Americans who dropped out of the labor force was 240,000 in July – 78,000 more than the162,000 jobs added in the month.

The BLS labeled people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as “not in the labor force,” including people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement, or simply given up looking for work.

Also, 2.4 million Americans were “marginally attached to the labor force,” which means they are not working but “wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.”

The labor force participation rate in July also ticked down to 63.4 percent, from 63.5 percent in June.
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