Atlanta Fed President suggest that U.S. labor market has a ways to go before reach full employment; especially the shadow work force

In a recent speech, the Atlanta Fed Pres. suggested that the U.S. labor market has a ways to go before reaching full employment. He was especially concerned about re-engaging the workers in the ‘shadow labor market’.

Lockhart says to get close to full employment would involve substantial absorption of shadow labor force http://t.co/94EdTaNDd5

— Atlanta Fed (@AtlantaFed) March 6, 2014

The shadow labor market includes people who are still willing to work but have essentially stopped looking for work. The BLS provides some measure of this in its U-6 measure of unemployment.

As this graph shows, U6, which accounts for the shadow workers, runs at about 2x the rate of the official unemployment rate. The Atlanta Fed Pres. statements show particular concern for reabsorbing (or simply put, getting jobs for) these individuals into the workforce.