Measures of Employment

What agency measures the unemployment rate?

What agency measures the unemployment rate?

•Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Who gets classified as employed?

Who gets classified as employed?

• The BLS classifies people with jobs as employed. People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay during the week in which a Current Population Survey “household survey” was conducted.

Who gets classified as being in the labor force?

Who gets classified as being in the labor force?

• To be counted as in the labor force, individuals must be aged 16 years and over. They must also have a job or be actively looking for a job.

How is the unemployment rate calculated?

How is the unemployment rate calculated?

• The unemployment rate equals the total number of unemployed persons divided by the total number of people in the labor force. BLS calls this the U-3 rate.

Are there other BLS measures of unemployment?

Are there other BLS measures of unemployment?

• Discouraged workers have given a job-market related reason to BLS for not currently looking for work. An example would be that they can’t find any jobs.

• BLS adds discouraged workers to their U-3 numbers for a second measure of unemployment called U-4.