Okay, so the Department of Labor’s employment statistics forSeptember were pretty gloomy.

However, for older workers the situation isactually considerably worse.

That’s according to a blog post from the Schwartz Center forEconomic Policy Analysis at the New School.

Although the DOL’s numbers for September indicate that overallunemployment held firm at 5.1 percent, it actually dropped slightlyamong those aged 55–64—from 4 percent in August to 3.6 percent.

That represents 945,000 older workers who are out of a job.

But wait, said the post. The situation is worse than that.

A combination of wage stagnation, a smaller workforce, and a lotfewer new jobs than expected meant that the DOL’s Septemberstatistics weren’t exactly greeted with wild cheers ofenthusiasm.

But for older workers, the numbers don’t tell the wholestory.

Economists know, said the post, that those numbers are muchcheerier than reality indicates. For one thing, those numbersinclude only those who have been job-hunting in the past fourweeks.

If you add in people who are working part time because they can’t find afull-time job—termed, in the blog post, “involuntary part-timeworkers,” that ups the total of unemployed older workers by another167,000.

Read: Graying workforce a boon toemployers

Next, you have to add in the people who’ve just given up lookingbecause there’s nothing out there for them—termed “discouragedworkers” in the post. That adds another 196,000 to the total.

So now you’re up to 1,308,000, an increase of 28 percent overwhat the DOL stats tell you.

“Going back to 2014,” said the blog post, “this realunemployment rate for workers 55-64 would be up to 30 percenthigher.”

But wait—there’s more.

Even that higher number isn’t a true indication of how bad it isfor older workers.

People who can’t find a job at all, or have settled forsomething part time or that pays a really low wage, have the“option” of retiring.

But this isn’t something to be desired, since it further worsensthe financial situation of the older worker.

Being pushed into retirement, older workers are in danger offacing downward mobility throughout their old age, it said, becausethey’ve had to draw on Social Security and their retirement savingsearlier than planned.

If the retirement age is raised, it will only make mattersworse, since there still won’t be jobs for a host of older workersbeing told they have to stay in the workforce longer before theycan count on any money to live on from Social Security.