I find it maddening when economists and reporters describe the unemployed people who have run out of EI and no longer register on official statistics as having "given up looking" or "fallen out of the jobs market". Nope, this is blatantly untrue. It may describe a few, but not the majority in the limbo of the statistics crack.
Most are now forced to take anything they can find as quickly as possible or fall quickly into poverty, even part-time employment far below their skill set, if they aren't dismissed as overqualified. They have not given up or fallen off, they have been kicked out, the safety net pulled away, throwing them into desperation. They are still there but they no longer count.
This phrasing defines this state as the choice of the unemployed and thus their fault. It says they have stumbled, jumped, surrendered, and failed.
We always blame the victim and excuse the abuser.
Every needs to be counted, because everyone counts.
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