Unemployment Rate unchanged in December at 4.1%.

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 remained unchanged in December (as reported today) at a rounded 4.1%. The Labor Force Participation rate remained unchanged December at 62.7%. The Employment/Population Ratio remained unchanged at 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)
Dec. 2016 Dec. 2017 Dec. 2016 Oct. 2017 Nov. 2017 Dec. 2017 Oct. 2017 Nov. 2017 Dec. 2017 Oct. 2017 Nov. 2017 Dec. 2017
All Ages (16+) 159.7 160.6 4.7 4.1 4.1 4.1 -0.1 0.0 0.0 -0.8 -0.5 -0.6
16 to 19 years 5.8 5.8 14.4 13.7 15.9 13.6 0.7 2.2 -2.3 -1.8 1.2 -0.8
20 to 24 years 15.4 15.0 8.0 7.2 7.1 7.1 -0.4 -0.1 0.0 -1.1 -0.9 -0.9
25 years and over 138.5 139.8 3.9 3.3 3.3 3.4 -0.2 0.0 0.1 -0.7 -0.6 -0.5
25 to 34 years 35.9 36.2 4.7 4.4 4.3 4.5 0.0 -0.1 0.2 -0.7 -0.5 -0.2
35 to 44 years 32.9 33.3 4.0 3.0 3.1 3.0 -0.2 0.1 -0.1 -0.9 -0.4 -1.0
45 to 54 years 33.8 33.5 3.4 2.7 2.7 2.7 -0.4 0.0 0.0 -0.7 -0.8 -0.7
55 years and over 35.9 36.7 3.5 3.1 3.1 3.3 -0.1 0.0 0.2 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2
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