Unemployment Rate fell in February to 3.8%.

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 February to 3.8% from 4% in January. The Labor Force Participation rate remained unchanged February at 63.2%. The Employment/Population Ratio remained unchanged at 60.7%. 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)
Feb. 2018 Feb. 2019 Feb. 2018 Dec. 2018 Jan. 2019 Feb. 2019 Dec. 2018 Jan. 2019 Feb. 2019 Dec. 2018 Jan. 2019 Feb. 2019
All Ages (16+) 161.9 163.2 4.1 3.9 4.0 3.8 0.2 0.1 -0.2 -0.2 -0.1 -0.3
16 to 19 years 6.0 5.8 14.4 12.5 12.9 13.4 0.5 0.4 0.5 -1.1 -1.0 -1.0
20 to 24 years 15.2 15.1 6.8 7.2 7.6 7.2 0.6 0.4 -0.4 0.2 0.2 0.4
25 years and over 140.6 142.3 3.4 3.1 3.3 3.1 0.1 0.2 -0.2 -0.3 -0.1 -0.3
25 to 34 years 36.6 37.1 4.3 3.9 3.9 4.0 0.2 0.0 0.1 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3
35 to 44 years 33.5 34.0 3.1 2.8 2.9 2.6 -0.1 0.1 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.5
45 to 54 years 33.6 33.1 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.2 -0.1 0.0
55 years and over 36.9 38.1 3.2 2.9 3.2 2.7 0.0 0.3 -0.5 -0.4 0.2 -0.5
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