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"
SAN FRANCISCO — Lisa Gluskin has had a tough three years. She works almost as
hard as she did during the dot-com boom, for about 20% of the income.



When Gluskin's writing and editing business cratered in 2001, she slashed her
rates, began studying for a graduate degree and started teaching part time at
a Lake Tahoe community college for a meager wage.


It's been a fragmented, hand-to-mouth life, one that she sees mirrored by
friends and colleagues who are waiting tables or delivering packages. In the
late '90s, the 35-year-old Gluskin says, "we had careers. We had
trajectories. Now we have complicated lives. We're not unemployed, but we're
underemployed."


The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by
historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial —
and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.


To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without
a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are
4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be
working full time — the highest number in a decade.


There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one
in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search
because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything.
Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year..."

and it goes on and on. Just log on to yahoo.news.