Unemployment Rate fell in October to 5%.

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 October to 5% from 5.1% in September. The Labor Force Participation rate remained unchanged October at 62.4%. The Employment/Population Ratio rose to 59.3% from 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.
Total Labor Force Mlns Rate (%) Monthly Change (%pts) Year/Year Change (%pts)
Oct. 2014 Oct. 2015 Oct. 2014 Aug. 2015 Sep. 2015 Oct. 2015 Aug. 2015 Sep. 2015 Oct. 2015 Aug. 2015 Sep. 2015 Oct. 2015
All Ages (16+) 156.2 157.0 5.7 5.1 5.1 5.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.1 -1.0 -0.8 -0.7
16 to 19 years 5.9 5.6 18.7 16.9 16.3 15.9 0.7 -0.6 -0.4 -2.5 -3.5 -2.8
20 to 24 years 15.7 15.5 10.5 8.9 9.1 9.4 -1.2 0.2 0.3 -1.8 -2.4 -1.1
25 years and over 134.8 136.1 4.7 4.2 4.1 4.1 -0.1 -0.1 0.0 -0.9 -0.6 -0.6
25 to 34 years 34.4 34.6 6.2 5.3 5.1 5.3 -0.2 -0.2 0.2 -1.5 -1.1 -0.9
35 to 44 years 32.4 32.7 4.4 3.9 4.0 4.1 -0.2 0.1 0.1 -0.9 -0.4 -0.3
45 to 54 years 33.9 33.8 4.0 3.9 3.4 3.6 0.1 -0.5 0.2 -0.4 -0.7 -0.4
55 years and over 34.1 35.0 4.1 3.8 3.9 3.5 0.1 0.1 -0.4 -0.7 0.0 -0.6
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