{"id":191112,"date":"2025-11-20T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T17:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/191112\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T17:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T17:32:09","slug":"number-of-americans-who-dont-want-jobs-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/191112\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of Americans Who Don\u2019t Want Jobs Rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

The number of Americans who don\u2019t want jobs is on the rise, according to new data<\/a> from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n

The number of people not in the labor force<\/a> who want a job decreased by 421,000 to 5.9 million in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why It Matters<\/p>\n

As the job market<\/a> continues to evolve, a number of experts have said they expect the number of people looking for work but unable to find it to increase.<\/p>\n

However, several economic forces can come together to push the number of Americans who are not actively looking for a job upward, experts say.<\/p>\n

\"\"What To Know<\/p>\n

The number of individuals counted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey surged during the month of September.<\/p>\n

The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job decreased by 421,000 to 5.9 million for the month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The overall national unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in September, still a relatively low number compared to the peak of 14.8 percent in April 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of this is playing out right in front of us on social media threads,\u201d Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. \u201cPeople are exhausted. They go through multiple rounds of interviews, get dragged along for weeks, only to hear, \u2018The position has been filled\u2019 or \u2018We\u2019re no longer hiring.\u2019 After a while, people simply tap out. They leave the workforce entirely, and once they\u2019re out.\u00a0 They are no longer counted towards the unemployment data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since wages often don\u2019t match the cost of living, many unemployed Americans have entirely quit looking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the pay doesn\u2019t justify the hours or the commute, people will piece together part-time work, unemployment, or other benefits just to survive. For many, the math isn’t working,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

What People Are Saying<\/p>\n

Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: <\/strong>\u201cThe demographics of those who are unemployed who are also not wanting a job at the moment vary wildly, from older Americans near or at retirement age to full-time students in their late teens or early twenties to middle-aged Americans who are caregivers or struggling with health issues. These groups have been factored into data for decades now, but the recent rise in those not wanting work has opened up more questions about other reasons, namely those who are discouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek:<\/strong> \u201cWages have not kept pace with inflation\u2014period. If employers can\u2019t offer enough to bring workers back in, it signals what they really think about the value of those positions. And because the people who give up entirely aren\u2019t counted, unemployment stays artificially low. Meanwhile, government benefits continue to rise due to a growing segment of workers hovering below the poverty line even while they\u2019re working full-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe long-term risk? A labor market that looks \u201ctight\u201d on paper but is structurally broken beneath the surface\u2014fewer workers participating, more relying on benefits, and employers still wondering where the workers went.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Ryan, a finance expert and the founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com<\/a>, told <\/strong>Newsweek<\/strong>: \u201cWhen job search costs rise and payoff falls, people rationally exit. Health and caregiving constraints bite hardest on lower-income households. Roughly 94% of the out-of-workforce population doesn’t want work anyway. The reactivation pool is structurally small.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Happens Next<\/p>\n

While the overall nationwide unemployment rate is relatively low, depending on which state you live in and what career field you are in, the unemployment rate may be higher and has been for months or even years now, Beene said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re in a field like Computer Science, which has been ravaged by layoffs over the last year, you may have applied to numerous jobs and had no interviews. It’s easy to see why some simply give up,\u201d Beene said. \u201cFor others, cost-of-living factors may have forced one member of the family out of the workforce in order to take care of a loved one because it would be more affordable not to work than pay for care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of Americans who don\u2019t want jobs is on the rise, according to new data from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,296,179,18,233,19,17,227,6045],"class_list":{"0":"post-191112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-career","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-employment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-jobs","16":"tag-labor"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115583225195577821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}