Unemployment Rate fell in April to 3.9%.

Posted - Filed under Data News, Household Survey.

For more charts and tables at finer levels of detail, please visit our Unemployment Dataset Page.

U3 unemployment rate

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The BLS U.3 unemployment rate fell in April to 3.9% from 4.1% in March. The Labor Force Participation rate fell to 62.8% from 62.9%. The Employment/Population Ratio fell to 60.3% from 60.4%. The contribution of these two factors to the Unemployment Rate is shown in the chart below.

U3 Contributions

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The relationship between the three measures is as follows:

UR = (LR – ER) / LR

Where LR is the Labor Force Participation Rate, and ER is the Employment Ratio. Note how a decrease in the participation rate on its own, reduces the unemployment rate: The number of available workers drops, and thus there are relatively fewer unemployed – even in the absence of job growth. This is what has happened in the recovery since the “Great Recession”.

Labor Force Participation Rate

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Employment Population Ratio

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More detailed Labor Force Participation Charts and Employment Ratio Charts  
U.S. Unemployment Rate. Seasonally Adjusted.
Total Labor Force Mlns Rate (%) Monthly Change (%pts) Year/Year Change (%pts)
Apr. 2017 Apr. 2018 Apr. 2017 Feb. 2018 Mar. 2018 Apr. 2018 Feb. 2018 Mar. 2018 Apr. 2018 Feb. 2018 Mar. 2018 Apr. 2018
All Ages (16+) 160.2 161.5 4.4 4.1 4.1 3.9 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -0.6 -0.4 -0.5
16 to 19 years 6.0 5.8 14.7 14.4 13.5 12.9 0.5 -0.9 -0.6 -0.5 -0.1 -1.8
20 to 24 years 15.3 15.2 7.3 6.8 6.6 6.7 -0.6 -0.2 0.1 -1.1 -0.7 -0.6
25 years and over 138.8 140.5 3.6 3.4 3.4 3.3 0.0 0.0 -0.1 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3
25 to 34 years 36.0 36.7 4.4 4.4 4.2 4.4 0.1 -0.2 0.2 -0.4 -0.3 0.0
35 to 44 years 33.0 33.6 3.6 3.1 3.2 3.0 0.0 0.1 -0.2 -1.0 -0.7 -0.6
45 to 54 years 33.6 33.2 3.4 2.9 2.9 2.8 -0.1 0.0 -0.1 -0.4 -0.4 -0.6
55 years and over 36.3 37.0 3.2 3.2 3.2 3.0 0.2 0.0 -0.2 -0.2 -0.1 -0.2
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