The unemployment rate measures the share of the labor force, defined as all people who are either employed or actively seeking work, that is currently without a job, and it is calculated in the United States from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Current Population Survey of about 60,000 households. First systematically tracked in the US in the 1940s, the headline U-3 rate is the most widely cited labor-market statistic worldwide, supplemented by broader measures such as U-6, which also counts marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers, and equivalent national rates are compiled by labor agencies in nearly every country as the primary gauge of labor-market slack.
Facts
Classification
Release FrequencySourced to the subject's own account Timing Class Geography
Geographic ScopeUnited States (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) 3 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Unemployment (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWikipedia, "Unemployment", lead section
Unemployment is the state of not being in paid employment or self-employment but rather currently available for work. Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate, which is the number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the labour force during the reference period.
Introduction, frequency
The unemployment rate measures the share of the labor force, defined as all people who are either employed or actively seeking work, that is currently without a job, and it is calculated in the United States from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Current Population Survey of about 60,000 households.
View the Source 2. US Leading Indicators (The Conference Board)
3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Wikipedia: Unemployment in the United States
Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia, "Unemployment in the United States", second paragraph of the "Unemployment can be measured in several ways" sectionQuote, Wikipedia, "Unemployment in the United States", second paragraph of the "Unemployment can be measured in several ways" section
The government's broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes the part-time underemployed was 8.3% in September 2017.
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Description
The headline unemployment rate reported each month is the U-3 measure: people without a job who have actively looked for work in the last four weeks and are currently available for work, as a share of the civilian labor force. This definition excludes anyone who wants a job but has stopped actively searching (a discouraged worker) and undercounts underemployment: someone working part time only because full-time work is unavailable is counted as employed, not unemployed. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics itself publishes a broader U-6 measure that adds these two groups back in; in September 2017, for example, U-6 stood at 8.3 percent against a U-3 reading of 4.2 percent for the same month, an illustration of how much the choice of definition can move the headline picture of labor market slack.
A dissenting reading, from a reviewerWikipedia: Unemployment in the United States, Wikimedia Foundation
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