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 December to 5.6% from 5.8% in November.

The Labor Force Participation rate fell to 62.7% from 62.9%.

The Employment/Population Ratio remained unchanged at 59.2%.

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.
TotalLabor Force MlnsRate (%)Monthly Change (%pts)Year/Year Change (%pts)
Dec.
2013
Dec.
2014
Dec.
2013
Oct.
2014
Nov.
2014
Dec.
2014
Oct.
2014
Nov.
2014
Dec.
2014
Oct.
2014
Nov.
2014
Dec.
2014
All Ages (16+) 155.0 156.1 6.7 5.7 5.8 5.6 -0.2 0.1 -0.2 -1.5 -1.2 -1.1
16 to 19 years 5.6 5.7 20.4 18.7 17.5 16.8 -1.1 -1.2 -0.7 -3.5 -3.4 -3.6
20 to 24 years 15.6 15.5 11.1 10.5 10.9 10.8 -1.0 0.4 -0.1 -1.9 -0.8 -0.3
25 years and over 133.8 134.9 5.6 4.7 4.7 4.5 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -1.3 -1.1 -1.1
25 to 34 years 33.9 34.4 7.0 6.2 6.1 5.9 0.0 -0.1 -0.2 -1.0 -1.3 -1.1
35 to 44 years 32.5 32.4 5.4 4.4 4.3 4.3 0.0 -0.1 0.0 -1.3 -1.4 -1.1
45 to 54 years 34.1 34.0 5.1 4.0 4.1 4.0 -0.1 0.1 -0.1 -1.9 -1.3 -1.1
55 years and over 33.3 34.2 5.1 4.1 4.5 3.9 0.2 0.4 -0.6 -1.4 -0.4 -1.2
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