The real unemployment rate includes Everyone who is unemployed, under-employed, or employed in a part-time job while seeking full time employment. This rate, which is different from reported US government figures, is believed to be as high as between 20 and 40%.

The official government unemployment rate is between 5-6% (http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000), however, ResumeRobin.com believes the real unemployment rate is much higher.

The unemployment situation has been greatly deteriorating since the 2008 economic meltdown.

At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don’t have jobs, some 40% our of those searching for jobs have given up even looking.

The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows.

A tight jobs market, the skills gap between what employers want and what prospective employees have to offer, and a benefits program that, while curtailed from its recession level, still remains obliging have combined to keep workers on the sidelines, according to a Harris poll of 1,553 working-age Americans conducted for Express Employment Professionals.

On the bright side, the number is actually better than 2014, the survey’s inaugural year, when 47 percent of the jobless said they had given up.