List Of Sovereign States By Unemployment Rate
This is a list of countries by unemployment rate. Methods of calculation and presentation of unemployment rate vary from country to country.Some countries count insured unemployed only, some count those in receipt of welfare benefit only, some count the disabled and other permanently unemployable people, some countries count those who choose not to work, supported by their spouses and caring for a family, some count students at college and so on. There may also be differences in the minimum requirements and some consider people employed even if only marginally associated with employment market .
There can be differences in the age limit. For example, Eurostat uses 15 to 74 years old when calculating unemployment rate, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses anyone 16 years of age or older . Unemployment rates are often seasonally adjusted to avoid variations that depend on time of year.Employment rate as a percentage of total population in working age is sometimes used instead of unemployment rate.
Us Transportation Sector Unemployment Rate Of 46% In August 2022 Was Below The August 2021 Level Of 64% And Was Just Below The Pre
The unemployment rate in the U.S. transportation sector was 4.6% in August 2022 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data recently updated on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Unemployment in Transportation dashboard. The August 2022 rate fell 1.8 percentage points from 6.4% in August 2021 and was just below the pre-pandemic August level of 4.8% in August 2019. Unemployment in the transportation sector reached its highest level during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020 and July 2020.
Unemployment in the transportation sector was above overall unemployment. BLS reports that the U.S. unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, in August 2022 was 3.8% or 0.8 percentage points below the transportation sector rate. Seasonally adjusted, the U.S. unemployment rate in August 2022 was 3.7%.
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The Unemployment Rate Was 37% In November 2022
Kimberly Amadeo is an expert on U.S. and world economies and investing, with over 20 years of experience in economic analysis and business strategy. She is the President of the economic website World Money Watch. As a writer for The Balance, Kimberly provides insight on the state of the present-day economy, as well as past events that have had a lasting impact.
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The current unemployment rate, which measures the percentage of workers who want a job but dont have one, has remained low as the U.S. economy continues to rebound from COVID-19.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks unemployment and jobs on a monthly basis. The current unemployment rate reveals more about the state of the overall economy and its impact on the average American’s finances.
Us Monthly Unemployment Rate
16 years and older
Supplementary notes
Seasonal adjustment is a statistical method used to remove the seasonal component of a time series that is used when analyzing non-seasonal trends. It is normal to report un-adjusted data for current unemployment rates, as these reflect the actual current situation. Seasonally-adjusted data may be used for the longer term comparison. Unlike trend and cyclical components, seasonal components, theoretically, happen with similar magnitude during the same time period each year. The seasonal component of a series is often considered to be uninteresting in its own right and may cause the interpretation of a series to be ambiguous. By removing the seasonal component, it is easier to focus on other components.
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Government As The Employer Of Last Resort
The government could also become the employer of last resort, just as central banks are the lenders of last resort. A job guarantee would maintain labor market stability and could establish full employment. This would introduce a shock absorber into the labor market. Full employment might also gain wider support among the electorate than a basic income policy.
The Unemployment Rate Peaked Above Levels Seen In The Great Recession
The number of unemployed people was 10.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of 4.9 million from a year earlier. In the second quarter of 2020, after the onset of the pandemic, the number of unemployed averaged 20.6 million, much higher than the peak reached in the aftermath of the Great Recession, when unemployment hit 15.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.5 The unemployment rate also spiked in the second quarter of 2020 and, at 13.0 percent, was the highest quarterly average ever recorded in the history of the series, which goes back to 1948. Despite rapid declines in the second half of the year, the unemployment rate averaged 6.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, which is nearly twice what it had been in the fourth quarter of 2019.
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Note: Q1 = first quarter, Q2 = second quarter, Q3 = third quarter, and Q4 = fourth quarter. |
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on CPS estimates
Misclassification of some people in the labor force
Both BLS and the Census Bureau found that, despite this guidance, some people who were not working because of the coronavirus were recorded as having a job and not working for other reasons. Starting in March 2020, BLS began producing an estimate of what the unemployment rate would have been if those with a job but not at work for other reasons had been counted among the unemployed on temporary layoff.
Response rates
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The Sharpest Rise In Unemployment Occurred In Service Occupations
In 2020, the unemployment rate increased for all five major occupational categories.6 The jobless rate for service occupations had the sharpest increase, rising by 8.6 percentage points over the year to reach 13.0 percent in 2020. Production, transportation, and material moving occupations had the second-largest increase, rising by 5.9 percentage points over the year to 10.2 percent in 2020. The pandemic and efforts to contain it had a substantial impact on these occupations. Within service occupations, food preparation and serving related occupations and personal care and service occupations were the most affected, with jobless rates that were nearly 4 times higher than they were in 2019. The jobless rates for natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations sales and office occupations and management, professional, and related occupations also rose sharply from 2019 to 2020.
How To Use The Unemployment Rate
Keep in mind that the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. It tells you what has already happened, since employers only lay off workers after business slows down.
Companies resist hiring new workers when a recession is over, until they can be sure that the economy will stay strong. The economy could improve for months, and the recession could be over before the unemployment rate drops. It’s not suitable for predicting trends, but it’s useful for confirming them.
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What Job Creation Rate Is Required To Lower The Unemployment Rate
Estimates
Estimates vary for the number of jobs that must be created to absorb the inflow of persons into the labor force, to maintain a given rate of unemployment. This number is significantly affected by demographics and population growth. For example, economist Laura D’Andrea Tyson estimated this figure at 125,000 jobs per month during 2011.
Economist Paul Krugman estimated it around 90,000 during 2012, mentioning also it used to be higher. One method of calculating this figure follows, using data as of September 2012: U.S. population 314,484,000 x 0.90% annual population growth x 63% of population is working age x 63% work force participation rate / 12 months per year = 93,614 jobs/month. This approximates the Krugman figure.
Federal Reserve analysts estimated this figure around 80,000 in June 2013: “According to our analysis, job growth of more than about 80,000 jobs per month would put downward pressure on the unemployment rate, down significantly from 150,000 to 200,000 during the 1980s and 1990s. We expect this trend to fall to around 35,000 jobs per month from 2016 through theremainder of the decade.”
Empirical data
During the 41 months from January 2010 to May 2013, there were 19 months where the unemployment rate declined. On average, 179,000 jobs were created in those months. The median job creation during those months was 166,000.
The Unemployment Rate Rose Markedly For Those With Less Education
Among workers ages 25 and older, jobless rates across all education levels spiked to their highest point ever following the onset of the pandemic in the second quarter of 2020 .11 Unemployment rates for people with less than a high school diploma and for high school graduates reached 19.0 percent and 14.9 percent, respectively, in the second quarter of 2020. For those with some college or an associate degree, and those with a bachelors degree and higher, jobless rates in the second quarter were 13.0 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively.
Although these measures improved after the second quarter, they remained about twice as high in the fourth quarter of 2020, as compared with a year earlier. The jobless rate for people with less than a high school diploma was 9.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, 4.1 percentage points higher than a year earlier. The unemployment rate for high school graduates with no college degree and for those with some college or an associate degree increased by a similar amount over the year . The rate for those with a bachelors degree and higher increased by 2.1 percentage points over the year, reaching 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020. As has historically been the case, jobless rates for those with higher levels of education remained well below the rates for those with less formal education.
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Trump Administration Work Visa Policy By Numbers
The US H-1B visa program that allows educated foreign professionals to work in the United States is taking a hit under the Trump Administration. In 2019, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services denied about 15 percent of H-1B visa petitions, a notable shift from 2015 when the denial rate was 4 percent, a rate second only to L-1A and L-1B visas, which now have a 28 percent denial rate.The Administrations put American workers first policy seeks to improve Americans’ welfare by reducing the inflow of low-paid labor. Toward that end, within the realm of work visas, the…
Difference Between The Unemployment And Jobs Reports
The unemployment rate and figures from the jobs report don’t always tell the same story, because they are taken from two different surveys.
The unemployment rate is taken from the household survey of individuals. It describes who is employed and who isn’t based on their responses.
The number of jobs added is taken from the establishment report, more commonly called the “nonfarm payroll report.” This survey of businesses describes how many jobs were created or lost by industry.
The number of unemployed doesn’t match the number of jobs lost, because these reports are taken from completely different sources. Those discrepancies are expected, and the estimates are revised each month as more data comes in.
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Employment Declined By A Record Amount In 2020
Although the labor market remained quite strong early in 2020, employment fell sharply in the spring with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Employment growth in the second half of the year led to a recovery of about half of these employment losses. Employment averaged 149.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, down 8.8 million from a year earlier.
Much of the employment decline early in the pandemic occurred among part-time workers. Part-time workers accounted for 29 percent of the employment decline from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2020, well above their prepandemic share of employment, at 17 percent. However, part-time workers made up 37 percent of the employment gain from the second quarter to the fourth quarter of 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, part-time employment was down by about 6 percent from a year earlier, matching the decline among full-time workers, which was also down by about 6 percent over the year.
Chart 1. Labor force participation rate and employmentpopulation ratio, quarterly averages, seasonally adjusted, 200020| Quarter |
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Note: Q1 = first quarter, Q2 = second quarter, Q3 = third quarter, and Q4 = fourth quarter. |
Biggest Job Gains By Industry
The biggest job gains for December 2021 were concentrated in these industries: leisure and hospitality , professional and business services , manufacturing , construction , transportation and warehousing , wholesale trade , and mining . These industries combined to add 184,000 jobs, or 92.5% of the December total of 199,000.
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The Unemployment Rate For Veterans Nearly Doubled Over The Year
There were 18.3 million veterans ages 18 and older in the civilian noninstitutional population in the fourth quarter of 2020. Veterans who served during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam era account for the largest share of the veteran population, at 6.7 million, followed by veterans who served during Gulf War era II and Gulf War era I . Four million veterans served on active duty during other service periods, mainly between the Korean War and the Vietnam era and between the Vietnam era and Gulf War era II.15 Among veterans, women accounted for 10 percent of the total veteran population in the fourth quarter of 2020.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate for veterans was 5.7 percent , up by 2.6 percentage points over the year. The unemployment rate for nonveterans, at 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter, increased by 3.3 percentage points over the year. Among the youngest veterans, the jobless rate for Gulf War-era II veterans , at 6.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, increased by 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier. The unemployment rate for male veterans, at 5.9 percent, increased by 3.0 percentage points over the year, while the jobless rate for female veterans, at 4.7 percent, changed little over the same period.
Inability To Pay Rent Or Mortgage
Millions were not caught up on their rent or mortgage payments in late 2021, the Household Pulse data also showed, but fewer than earlier in the year.
The December 2020 relief package and the Rescue Plan included over $46 billion in emergency rental assistance, designed to help people struggling to pay their rent and avoid eviction. Getting this emergency aid to people behind on rent took time, as many communities did not have adequate systems in place to distribute emergency rental assistance funds quickly. An August 2021 Supreme Court ruling ended the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions eviction moratorium, heightening the urgency to quickly distribute rental assistance to people in need. Once states and localities built the necessary infrastructure for people to apply for and receive emergency assistance, however, disbursement of funds accelerated in the fall of 2021. Over 3.2 million households received emergency aid from January to November 2021, according to Treasury Department data, with over half of these households receiving aid between September and November.
In addition, 23 percent of renters who are parents or otherwise living with children reported that they were not caught up on rent, compared to 12 percent among adults not living with anyone under age 18.
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Comparison Of Employment Recovery Across Recessions And Financial Crises
One method of analyzing the impact of recessions on employment is to measure the period of time it takes to return to the pre-recession employment peak. By this measure, the 20082009 recession was considerably worse than the five other U.S. recessions from 1970 to present. By May 2013, U.S. employment had reached 98% of its pre-recession peak after approximately 60 months. Employment recovery following a combined recession and financial crisis tends to be much longer than a typical recession. For example, it took Norway 8.5 years to return to its pre-recession peak employment after its 1987 financial crisis and it took Sweden 17.8 years after its 1991 financial crisis. The U.S. is recovering considerably faster than either of these countries.
Difficulty Covering Usual Household Expenses
The Pulse survey asks adult respondents if their household had difficulty paying for usual expenses such as food, rent or mortgage, car payments, medical expenses, or student loans in the last seven days. Table 3 shows the estimated number and percent of adults reporting that it was somewhat or very difficult for their household to pay for their usual expenses in the last seven days.
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How Is The Unemployment Rate Calculated
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates unemployment as the percentage of the eligible workforce not currently employed. Eligible workers are those age 16 or older who were available to work full time and actively looked for work in the past four weeks. Temporarily laid-off workers are also counted.
