Unemployment Rate rose in December to 3.9%.

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 rose in December to 3.9% from 3.7% in November. The Labor Force Participation rate rose to 63.1% from 62.9%. The Employment/Population Ratio remained unchanged at 60.6%. 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)
Dec. 2017 Dec. 2018 Dec. 2017 Oct. 2018 Nov. 2018 Dec. 2018 Oct. 2018 Nov. 2018 Dec. 2018 Oct. 2018 Nov. 2018 Dec. 2018
All Ages (16+) 160.6 163.2 4.1 3.8 3.7 3.9 0.1 -0.1 0.2 -0.3 -0.5 -0.2
16 to 19 years 5.8 6.0 13.6 12.0 12.0 12.5 -0.6 0.0 0.5 -1.8 -3.8 -1.1
20 to 24 years 15.0 15.0 7.0 6.8 6.6 7.2 -0.1 -0.2 0.6 -0.4 -0.7 0.2
25 years and over 139.8 142.2 3.4 3.1 3.0 3.1 0.1 -0.1 0.1 -0.2 -0.3 -0.3
25 to 34 years 36.2 37.1 4.4 3.7 3.7 3.9 0.2 0.0 0.2 -0.7 -0.6 -0.5
35 to 44 years 33.3 33.8 3.0 3.0 2.9 2.8 0.1 -0.1 -0.1 0.0 -0.2 -0.2
45 to 54 years 33.5 33.2 2.7 2.8 2.6 2.9 0.1 -0.2 0.3 0.0 -0.2 0.2
55 years and over 36.7 38.0 3.3 2.9 2.9 2.9 0.1 0.0 0.0 -0.2 -0.2 -0.4
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