Unemployment Rate unchanged in October at 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 remained unchanged in October (as reported today) at a rounded 3.7%. The Labor Force Participation rate rose to 62.9% from 62.7%. The Employment/Population Ratio rose to 60.6% from 60.4%. 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)
Oct. 2017 Oct. 2018 Oct. 2017 Aug. 2018 Sep. 2018 Oct. 2018 Aug. 2018 Sep. 2018 Oct. 2018 Aug. 2018 Sep. 2018 Oct. 2018
All Ages (16+) 160.4 162.6 4.1 3.9 3.7 3.7 0.0 -0.2 0.0 -0.5 -0.5 -0.4
16 to 19 years 5.8 6.0 13.7 12.8 12.8 11.9 -0.3 0.0 -0.9 -1.0 -0.2 -1.8
20 to 24 years 15.3 14.9 7.2 6.8 6.9 6.8 -0.1 0.1 -0.1 -0.4 -0.7 -0.4
25 years and over 139.3 141.8 3.3 3.2 3.0 3.1 0.0 -0.2 0.1 -0.5 -0.5 -0.2
25 to 34 years 36.3 37.0 4.4 4.1 3.5 3.6 0.6 -0.6 0.1 -0.8 -0.9 -0.8
35 to 44 years 33.1 33.9 3.0 2.9 2.9 3.0 -0.2 0.0 0.1 -0.5 -0.3 0.0
45 to 54 years 33.4 33.3 2.7 2.6 2.7 2.7 -0.3 0.1 0.0 -0.8 -0.4 0.0
55 years and over 36.6 37.7 3.1 3.1 2.8 2.8 0.0 -0.3 0.0 -0.1 -0.4 -0.3
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