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 May to 4.7% from 5% in April.

The Labor Force Participation rate fell to 62.6% from 62.8%.

The Employment/Population Ratio remained unchanged at 59.7%.

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)
May
2015
May
2016
May
2015
Mar.
2016
Apr.
2016
May
2016
Mar.
2016
Apr.
2016
May
2016
Mar.
2016
Apr.
2016
May
2016
All Ages (16+) 157.4 158.5 5.5 5.0 5.0 4.7 0.1 0.0 -0.3 -0.5 -0.4 -0.8
16 to 19 years 5.8 5.8 17.8 15.9 16.0 16.0 0.3 0.1 0.0 -1.7 -1.1 -1.8
20 to 24 years 15.6 15.4 10.1 8.4 8.8 8.3 -0.2 0.4 -0.5 -1.9 -0.8 -1.8
25 years and over 135.9 137.2 4.4 4.1 4.1 3.8 0.0 0.0 -0.3 -0.3 -0.3 -0.6
25 to 34 years 34.8 35.3 5.8 5.2 5.2 5.0 0.1 0.0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.5 -0.8
35 to 44 years 32.5 32.7 4.4 3.9 4.0 3.5 0.1 0.1 -0.5 -0.2 -0.3 -0.9
45 to 54 years 33.9 33.8 3.9 3.6 3.5 3.4 0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.5
55 years and over 34.7 35.4 3.7 3.9 3.6 3.4 0.1 -0.3 -0.2 0.0 -0.3 -0.3
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