Unemployment Rate fell in September to 3.5%.

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 September to 3.5% from 3.7% in August. The Labor Force Participation rate remained unchanged September at 63.2%. The Employment/Population Ratio rose to 61% from 60.9%. 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)
Sep. 2018 Sep. 2019 Sep. 2018 July 2019 Aug. 2019 Sep. 2019 July 2019 Aug. 2019 Sep. 2019 July 2019 Aug. 2019 Sep. 2019
All Ages (16+) 162.1 164.0 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.5 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -0.2 -0.1 -0.2
16 to 19 years 5.8 5.9 12.6 12.8 12.6 12.5 0.1 -0.2 -0.1 -0.3 -0.1 -0.1
20 to 24 years 15.1 15.3 6.9 6.8 7.0 6.3 0.5 0.2 -0.7 -0.1 0.2 -0.6
25 years and over 141.1 142.8 3.0 3.0 2.9 2.8 0.0 -0.1 -0.1 -0.1 -0.3 -0.2
25 to 34 years 36.8 37.2 3.5 3.7 3.6 3.6 0.1 -0.1 0.0 0.2 -0.5 0.1
35 to 44 years 33.5 34.3 2.9 2.8 2.8 2.6 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -0.3 -0.1 -0.3
45 to 54 years 33.2 32.8 2.7 2.7 2.8 2.8 0.0 0.1 0.0 -0.2 0.2 0.1
55 years and over 37.6 38.5 2.8 2.7 2.6 2.4 -0.3 -0.1 -0.2 -0.4 -0.4 -0.4
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