WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following is the transcript of a response of
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a question during his Thursday
afternoon news conference:
Bernanke: As I mentioned earlier, the — the unemployment decline
last month was more than 100% accounted for by declines in
participation. Some decline in participation is anticipated as is
expected. We’re an aging society. We have more — more people retiring.
Female participation has flattened out. It hasn’t continued to climb as
it did for several decades. We’re seeing less participation among
younger people, fewer college students taking part-time jobs and the
like. So part of this decline in participation was something that we
anticipated quite a long time ago, but part of it is — is cyclical.
Part of it reflects the fact that some people — because they have
essentially given up or have discouraged have decided to leave the labor
force. And the anticipation is that if the economy really were to
strengthen and labor markets were to strengthen at least some of those
people would come back to the labor force, they might even temporarily
raise the unemployment rate because they’re now looking again. So the
participation rate over and above the — the decline in participation
rate over and above the downward trend is just one of the other
indicators of a general weak labor market. That’s why I said earlier
that we do want to look at a range of indicators, not just the
unemployment rate, although that’s a very important indicator, not just
payrolls, although that also is a leading indicator, but participation,
hours, part-time work and a variety of other measures which suggest that
our labor market is still in quite weak condition.
(News conference ends)
** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **
[TOPICS: M$U$$$,MMUFE$,MGU$$$,MFU$$$]
