Lack of information on number of underemployed masks problem

Define underemployment as the under-utilization of labor resources. A high rate of underemployment is one expression of overcapacity in the labor market (the other being, of course, unemployment).

The overall unemployment rate in the U.S as of the time of this writing is 9.4 percent. That statistic is grotesquely deflated by the number of discouraged workers and the number of underemployed workers.

Underemployment is like that guy who owes you money -- seemingly impossible to track down. The government provides a measurement called the underemployment reading, as of March (2009) reported as being over 14 percent. (It would be safe to assume it has since deteriorated.) The problem with the underemployment reading is that it only measures part-time workers who would like to work full-time. It does not account for people working jobs that are "beneath them." I'm all for the work ethic and very much in agreement with the idea that there is honor in all honest labor, but someone with an MS in Computer Science should not be tending bar, even full-time. Such situations under-utilize labor resources -- the definition of underemployment -- but it is well-nigh impossible to measure how many geniuses are driving hotel vans.

Conclusion: Nobody knows what the real underemployment rate is. We know that the official unemployment rate is 9.4 percent. We know that the "underemployment reading" is over 14 percent. That adds up to 25 percent of workers unemployed or underemployed. That doesn't even count discouraged workers, neither looking for work nor working. Tack on another very conservative 5 percent there. That leaves us with around 30 percent of workers unemployed or underemployed in the U.S. The only thing we can say definitively is that it amounts to a whole lot of people.