Unemployment Rate fell in September to 4.2%.

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 4.2% from 4.4% in August. The Labor Force Participation rate rose to 63.1% from 62.9%. The Employment/Population Ratio rose to 60.4% from 60.1%. 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. 2016 Sep. 2017 Sep. 2016 July 2017 Aug. 2017 Sep. 2017 July 2017 Aug. 2017 Sep. 2017 July 2017 Aug. 2017 Sep. 2017
All Ages (16+) 159.8 161.1 4.9 4.3 4.4 4.2 -0.1 0.1 -0.2 -0.6 -0.5 -0.7
16 to 19 years 6.0 6.0 15.9 13.2 13.6 12.9 -0.1 0.4 -0.7 -2.4 -2.0 -3.0
20 to 24 years 15.2 15.4 8.2 7.4 7.1 7.5 -0.1 -0.3 0.4 -1.5 -1.0 -0.7
25 years and over 138.6 139.7 4.1 3.6 3.8 3.5 -0.1 0.2 -0.3 -0.4 -0.3 -0.6
25 to 34 years 35.8 36.2 5.1 4.6 4.9 4.4 0.2 0.3 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.7
35 to 44 years 32.9 33.1 4.1 3.6 3.4 3.2 0.2 -0.2 -0.2 0.1 -0.7 -0.9
45 to 54 years 33.9 33.6 3.6 3.2 3.6 3.1 -0.4 0.4 -0.5 -0.3 0.0 -0.5
55 years and over 35.9 36.8 3.6 3.2 3.2 3.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 -0.5 -0.3 -0.4
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