Steve DeLoach, the Martha and Spencer Love Term Professor, was featured in an article about discouraged workers in America, as the nation reaches its lowest unemployment rate in decades.
A Bankrate article about the number of discouraged workers in the U.S. in a time where the nation’s unemployment rates are at a 50-year low, features insights from Professor of Economics Steve DeLoach.
The article, “Despite the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, many remain discouraged,” examines the concept of discouraged workers — or people who have not looked for jobs in the past four weeks because they do not believe there is work for them — and what the current rate of those discouraged workers says about the economy. The author addresses slow wage gain and a lack of working hours as possible issues leading to discouraged workers in America.
In the article, DeLoach, the Martha and Spencer Love Term Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics, discusses employment rates and why there will always be discouraged workers, regardless of unemployment numbers.
“There’s a reason we can’t go to zero unemployment,” he said. “There’s a group of people, even in a really strong economy, who don’t have the skills appropriate for whatever jobs are being posted.”
DeLoach also points to financial constraints for workers who cannot afford to relocate, as well as education and skill levels, as other possible causes of discouragement in the workforce.
For more of DeLoach’s insights, read the entire Bankrate article here.
The article was also featured by local television news affiliates WFMY, KING, KCEN, KVUE, WCNC, WKYC, WHAS and WBIR, as well as MSN.com.