Google the term “Unemployment in the U.S.” and you’ll come across hundreds of articles and news detailing how bad our situation is. There is discussion about how the unemployment rate, though low, isn’t showing the full picture and how it’s affecting millennial jobs. Now while this may be so, it’s also true that the situation is not being represented correctly. Here are a few reasons why you should be optimistic about America’s current unemployment status.

Historical Low

Barack Obama gets a lot of flak for his healthcare reforms, but one thing that he doesn’t get credit for is his efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy. In fact, our current unemployment rate of 4.9% is the lowest we’ve had since 1997, during the days of the internet boom. While the growth rate isn’t really as high as it was back then, it’s still something to rejoice over as more sustainable industries are now foraying into the U.S. market, opening up the way for new jobs. The veteran unemployment rate is also steady at 3.9%, which is the lowest it has been since the property market crash of 2008.

Zero Unemployment is Bad

The idea that unemployment is universally bad has been ingrained in our minds. What most people do not realize is that unemployment itself isn’t a single term, but composed of three parts; Structural, frictional and cyclical unemployment. The layman usually refers to cyclical unemployment i.e. the unavailability of jobs. But what we are interested in is frictional unemployment. It basically refers to unemployment that comes as a result of people shifting jobs i.e. the time period between leaving an existing job to find a new one.

If the frictional unemployment is zero, there would literally be no growth stimulation in baby industries that are just starting out. Zero unemployment would mean no one is willing to leave their old jobs to join the new industry.

Job Growth is High

Just in the past month of August, about 151,000 new jobs were added according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While this target falls short of the expected 180,000 new job openings, job growth has been on an increasing trend for the past 78 months. Not only that, the average hourly earnings also rose by 3 cents to a new level of $25.73.

We are at the Ideal Unemployment Level Right Now

We’ve already established that zero unemployment can be unhealthy for an economy. But this begs the question; what’s the ideal unemployment rate? According to long term estimates by the Federal Reserve, the ideal long term unemployment level (in the absence of shocks) is within 4.5% to 6%. Our current unemployment rate of 4.9% falls within that level, meaning we are currently at the ideal spot! As a cherry on top, our GDP of $18 trillion is the highest in our history along with the GDP per capita of $54,629.