In case you missed it, the July Jobs Report was released Friday, and confirmed what many are experiencing—the job market stinks!

According to the report, only 73,000 new jobs were created in July. That's less than the capacity of most NFL stadiums. Think about it, roughly the same number of people who will attend a single football game got a job last month.

And, if recent history is any indication, that figure is artificially high and will likely be revised downward significantly in the coming months.

• May's initial report was 144,000, but was revised down to 19,000 • June's was originally 147,000, and was revised down to 14,000

That's right, in May and June COMBINED, only 33,000 jobs were added in the entire US.

Fenway Park, notoriously one of the smallest baseball fields, would comfortably hold all the people who got jobs in May AND June and still have 4,000 empty seats.

And the vast majority of those jobs were in healthcare and hospitality, with a small sliver of white collar hires.

So why then has the unemployment rate barely moved?

Did you know that the unemployment numbers come from the Current Population Survey, also known as the Household Survey?

Each month, 60,000 households are called, by phone, to self-report their household's employment situation. The actual number of participants is much less due to an average response rate of 70% or 42,000 households.

Data from that tiny sample is extrapolated into the US unemployment rate.

There is so much wrong here.

• How can 6̶0̶,̶0̶0̶0̶ 42,000 households accurately represent the entire US? They can't. • Who answers calls from an unknown number? I sure don't, do you? Who exactly are they asking? • If someone reports working a single side gig or freelance project, guess what? They're considered "employed," even if they aren't. • Responses from underrepresented groups are more heavily weighted to match the overall population. If, for example, only a handful of educated tech workers in major cities participate in the survey, and they all happen to be employed, the data would conclude that all such people are employed.

All this leads to the disconnect between what's being reported and what people are experiencing.

The unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed, have become uncounted, invisible. It's a big reason why nothing is being done to help or change the situation.

It's maddening! Not to mention disheartening! With ZenSearch, I've built a platform that contributes to fixing the problem. Hopefully for you.

I know I usually post about being positive, staying in the moment, and celebrating small wins. And I promise to get back to that soon. I just feel this is important information to share, even if the only thing we can do is keep on keepin' on.

-------- Check us out at ZenSearch.jobs and share our platform with anyone looking for something new. Together, we can make job searching a little more zen.