Unemployment Data – October 2015

OCTOBER 2015 Unemployment Data–the Full Count*
(U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS)

OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT: 5.0%*[Analyses]

White
     4.4%
African American
9.2%
Hispanic
6.3%
Asian**
                          3.5%
Persons with a disability**
   10.5%
Men 20 years and over
4.7%
Women 20 years and over
4.5%
Teens (16-19 years)
15.9%
Black teens
25.6%
Officially unemployed
7.9 million

*If the LFPR were at its pre-recession level, the unemployment rate in October 2015 would have been 7.1%  instead of 5.0%. [See “The Labor Force Participation Rate and Its Trajectory”]

HIDDEN UNEMPLOYMENT

Working part-time because can’t find a full-time job: 5.8 million
People who want jobs but are not looking so are not counted in official statistics (of which about 1.9 million** searched for work during the prior 12 months and were available for work during the reference week.)  6.1 million
Total: 19.8 million (12.1% of the labor force)

Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf See also Current Employment Statistics–Highlights

**Not seasonally adjusted.
*See Uncommon Sense #4 for an explanation of the unemployment measures, and Is the Decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate During This Recession Permanent?.

In addition, millions more were working full-time, year-round, yet earned less than the official poverty level for a family of four. In 2013, the latest year available, that number was 18.5 million, 17.5 percent of full-time, full-year workers (estimated from Current Population Survey, Bur. of the  Census, 9/2014).

Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

Unemployment Rate Vastly Understates Labor Market WeaknessEPI

Chartbook: The Legacy of the Great Recession (CBPP)

See BLS slides