U6 Unemployment Tops 17%

This morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis put out data concerning the unemployment rate for the United States during September 2009. The reported unemployment rate climbed to 9.8% in the most recent month, and the broader total unemployment (aka the U6 Unemployment) climbed to 17%--this figure includes people who are working part time for economic reasons.

EconomPicData does a great job of plotting all types of economic data and today I'm pulling a nice chart that he created that shows just how tightly correlated the Unemployment rate and the U-6 Unemployment rate are.Another disturbing trend that EconomPicData picks up on is the fact that the number of hours worked per week times the # of people employed divided by the population (essentially the number of hours per week worked per capital). And what is disturbing is that it is at a multi-decade low and still dropping; additionally, before companies start hiring new workers they usually start increasing the number of hours worked by their existing work-force.