Five Reasons

• Job Losers: A job loser is an unemployed person who has been involuntarily terminated or laid off from a job. More specifically, a job loser is:
  • A person who has been permanently terminated from a job and is actively seeking employment.
  
  
  • A person who has been temporarily laid off from a job and is not actively seeking employment due to expectations being called back to work within six months.


• Job Leavers: A job leaver is a person who has voluntarily quit one job and is actively seeking employment elsewhere.


• Completed Temporary Job: An unemployed person can also be one who has recently completed a temporary job and is actively seeking employment elsewhere.


• Re-entrants: A re-entrant is a person who had previously been classified as an employed person, but has been out of the labor force for a period of time before actively seeking employment once again.


• New Entrants: A new entrant is a person who has never before been employed and is actively seeking employment for the first time.

Six Examples

• Phoebe Pankovic, Job Loser: Phoebe Pankovic was once a paid employee of Quadra DG Computer Works, working as an assistant to Preston Pumpernickel. However, she was not very good and was fired. Phoebe has been frantically searching for other employment. She scans the want ads, sends resumes to prospective employers, and has been on several job interviews. Her job searching efforts are overkill as far as qualifying her for "seeking employment," but Pheobe definitely qualifies for the BLS job loser category.


• Peyton Patterson, Job Loser: Peyton Patterson has been a valued employee of the OmniMotors automobile manufacturing facility for several years. But a downturn in OmniMotors sales has forced the company to lay off 10 percent of its workforce. Peyton was one of those laid off. However, OmniMotors expects business to pick up in a month or so and Peyton will then be called back to work. Peyton is not overly concerned. This sort of thing happens every few years. Peyton is certainly not concerned enough to seek other employment. So he sits around the house most of the time watching television and waiting to be recalled. Peyton qualifies for the BLS job loser category.


• Parker Plesac, Job Leaver: Parker Plesac was a pharmaceutical sales representative for the Decatur Drug and Tonic Company. But if the truth be known, Parker never really liked his boss. After three years of putting up with the insufferable bore who signed his paycheck, Parker decided it was time to move on. So he quit. Of course, Parker immediately began contacting other pharmaceutical companies about possible sales positions. But so far, no luck. Parker falls into the job leaver category of the BLS.


• Petula Plesac, Temporary Worker: Parker's wife, Petula Plesac is also unemployed. Petula spent most of her adult life tending to the Plesac household, playing tennis at the club, and donating time to local charities. However, when her hubby Parker lost his pharmaceutical sales job, Petula spent three weeks as a "temp" worker at the Quadra DG Computer Works assisting Preston Pumpernickel with a year-end project report. But that task has been completed, and Quadra has no further need for her services. However, Petula liked the taste of employment, and with the Plesac family savings account nearly depleted, she continues to search for other work. Petula falls into the worker completing a temporary job category of unemployment.


• Peter Pankovic, Re-entrant: Peter Pankovic once had a job, a well-paying job at the HyFy Electronics Company (a leading record-player manufacturer). But when the HyFy Electronics Company went bankrupt, Peter lost his job and spent several long months sleeping on his sister's sofa and eating left over pizza crust. Peter has finally decided the time has come to seek employment once again. He has been scanning the want ads, contacting prospective employers, and fine-tuning his resume. Peter has re-entered the labor force and qualifies for the BLS status of re-entrant.


• Perry Porter, New Entrant: Perry Porter spent several years at the Ambling Institute of Technology studying to be a paleontologist. Perry had never held a paying job, nor satisfied any of the BLS criteria to be either an employed person or an unemployed person during his entire life. Perry is now seeking employment for the very first time. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of paleontologist positions available. So Perry keeps looking. Having never been part of the labor force before, Perry is considered a new entrant by the BLS.