The article "Jobless rate falls further" written by Sudeep Reddy and Sarah Murray, discusses the US job markets and the steps taken to improve the unemployment rate. It sheds light on the reduction of jobless rate and evaluates the feasibility and practicality of this decision. Whether hiring more people and reducing the jobless rate is the solution for the betterment of workforce and economy or something deeper needs to be tackled, is the issue raised in this article.
According to the article, a low jobless rate should mark at a more positive look of the labor market. However, even thou a large number of people were added to the nonfarm job the labor participation rate still remained stagnant. The participation rate is a good barometer for measuring workforce health as it signifies the number of people working or searching for work, Factors like inflation, increasing oil prices, law and order situation around the world also diminishes the productivity of the work force. For the long-term economic growth to show improvement it requires more time and deeper measures rather than just an increase in the workforce. The productivity of the workforce comes from the favorable working environment and better economic indicators rather than just mere numeric.
The problems in the workforce are the idle people who would not return to work because of low pay scales and the lack of appropriate education needed to join the new position advertised. In order to actually get results from the labor market one has to work on the link between the economy, its growth and more feasible employment indicators. The government has to concentrate more on the economic growth and stability of prices rather than crowding out the job market. Thus there is no point in lowering the jobless rate if the figure is not backed up by the increasing economic activity, better production and better prices all leading to greater sales and eventually more profitability.
