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From International Socialist Review, Vol.28 No.1, January-February 1967, p.36.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
“WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Labor Statistics unveiled changes in its method of counting the employed and unemployed but said the revisions won’t make monthly job statistics substantially different from current results ...
“The chief change will be to drop those aged 14 and 15 from the counting system. The bureau contends these youngsters work mainly as newsboys, babysitters and the like, and that unemployed among them has ‘little economic or social significance.’ Abour one million in this age group currently are in the labor force.
“Another change will be to count as unemployed only those who are available for work. In the past, high school or college students who began looking for summer work in April were counted as unemployed ... Bureau officials said this change will tend to lower the number of teenage jobless in April, May and June ...
“Further a person will be counted as unemployed only if he has engaged in ‘some specific job-seeking activity’ – such as going to the unemployment service, applying for a job, or answering a want ad – within four weeks previous to the monthly survey week ... Under the current system, workers who are absent from their jobs because of strikes, bad weather and other reasons and are looking for other jobs are classified as jobless. Federal statisticians say there are relatively few of these types, however ...”
— Wall Street Journal, Nov. 23, 1966
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