------------------------
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> -----Original Message-----
Daniel Davies writes:
> ... My understanding of what the BLS unemployment rate is
> meant to measure is this: it's meant to measure the number
> of people who would be employed if the labour market were to clear at the current
> prevailing wage rate, but who are not employed. It's a measure of labour
> market disequilibrium.
The BLS isn't thinking of the idea of market-clearing when they do surveys to figure out the unemployment rate. In theory, the labor-power markets are in macro-equilibrium (macro market clearing) when the number of unemployed workers equals the number of vacancies. The BLS doesn't measure the latter (so that economists have to use help-wanted ads and the like). This macro equilibrium coexists with micro-disequilibrium (non-clearing of markets), where there are unemployed workers and vacancies but the two can't get together.
JD
