Quote from rcanfiel:
The unemployment figure is a gauge. It has not varied much in decades.
That already shows you do not know what you are talking about. Unemployment figure calculation, along with CPI, has been heavily modified over the past decade. Mainly, the amount of time given to the unemployed worker to find a new job before he/she is taken out of the labor pool, has been shortened. It currently stands at 6 months.
But something tells me you do not know how the percentage is caculated and why "labor pool" is a very important part of the equation, hence can be modified to juke the stats, so to speak.
Nothing to do with conspiracy theory, just common sense & critical thinking. Read the report, learn how it is calculated, then note the changes done over the decades, all of which are documented. Simple is that if you are not afraid of the truth. Or subscribe to a service that does it for you and reorganizes the government data to show a more accurate gauge.
Illegal labor is whole other topic, it's funny you try to mix it into construction. True construction jobs are run by unions, those jobs are important and well paid. The cheap illegal labor, easily found in many towns in NJ, is not something the government would want in their calculation, because A) it would drive down wages stats B) If you ever see how that labor "gets work", you might as well change "USA" to "New Banana Republic".
You sound like Pabst who thinks just because you can stand on the corner and offer to whore yourself out for $5 a day, that there is always work. The world's oldest profession is available in any nation, so with that logic, you can claim 100% employment anywhere.
Just because McDonalds is hiring, does not mean you can pay your rent or eat.