Unemployment Rate fell in September to 3.7%.

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 3.7% from 3.9% in August. The Labor Force Participation rate remained unchanged September at 62.7%. The Employment/Population Ratio rose to 60.4% from 60.3%. 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. 2017 Sep. 2018 Sep. 2017 July 2018 Aug. 2018 Sep. 2018 July 2018 Aug. 2018 Sep. 2018 July 2018 Aug. 2018 Sep. 2018
All Ages (16+) 161.1 161.9 4.2 3.9 3.9 3.7 -0.1 0.0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.5 -0.5
16 to 19 years 6.0 5.8 13.0 13.1 12.8 12.8 0.5 -0.3 0.0 -0.2 -1.0 -0.2
20 to 24 years 15.4 15.1 7.6 6.9 6.8 6.9 -0.5 -0.1 0.1 -0.5 -0.4 -0.7
25 years and over 139.7 141.1 3.5 3.2 3.2 3.0 -0.1 0.0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.5 -0.5
25 to 34 years 36.2 36.8 4.4 3.5 4.1 3.5 -0.4 0.6 -0.6 -1.0 -0.8 -0.9
35 to 44 years 33.1 33.5 3.2 3.1 2.9 2.9 0.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.5 -0.5 -0.3
45 to 54 years 33.6 33.2 3.1 2.9 2.6 2.7 -0.1 -0.3 0.1 -0.3 -0.8 -0.4
55 years and over 36.8 37.6 3.2 3.1 3.1 2.8 0.0 0.0 -0.3 -0.1 -0.1 -0.4
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