So unemployment in the US has jumped to 9.4% but are the numbers telling us the truth? Is unemployment actually worse than what the statisticians are telling us?

As reported here, consultant John Williams says the number of unemployed in the US is actually more like 20%, which takes it up to levels close to those seen in the Great Depression. The official stats, he says, don't take into account discouraged job seekers. Simply put, they have given up because the jobs aren't there.

Frank Bass from Associated Press expands on that further here. The official rate doesn't include "marginally-attached workers". These are people who have looked for work in the past year but stopped searching in the past month because of barriers to employment such as child care, poor health or lack of transportation. Nor does it include "involuntary part-time workers" who are underemployed because they have been forced to take part time work because that's the only work available.

And as reported here , employers hired 17.1 million workers in the first four months of the year. This was about 14% below hiring for the first four months of 2008. and the weakest-ever four-month hiring record. Through April there were 10.3 million layoffs, up 36% from the first four months of 2008 and the worst four-month performance.

All that suggests is that the road back out of this recession is going to be long and hard. The pain will be around for a long time.