America recently redefined what unemployment means. It used to mean "the amount of people currently capable of working, who are not employed in work." The new

America recently redefined what unemployment means. It used to mean "the amount of people currently capable of working, who are not employed in work." The new definition is "the amount of people who want a job, but can't find one". Basically the difference between structural unemployment and transitive unemployment. America used to track transitive unemployment, but through a series of reforms have narrowed in on measuring structural unemployment. Originally if you were not employed you would be unemployed. Slowly this was altered so that if you were not employed and hadn't found a job in a month you were unemployed (because you were looking and not finding, and therefore there was no job for you). Slowly that got moved out. I don't have the most recent numbers committed to memory, but an not employed person is not considered unemployed unless they've been looking and have not found for a large amount of time. This article hits on that theme. The argument/opinion it expresses is that the jobs ARE there - that structural unemployment is low - but that workers aren't finding good work ("transitive unemployment is high"). There's been huge moves in the labor market as middle skilled jobs are disappearing. The only move for the labor pool is down to low-skilled labor jobs, work that masses of the labor pool are not only overqualified for, but will be compensated significantly less for and which represent much less socioeconomic mobility.