The unemployment rate is an important economic indicator, reflecting how many people are jobless and looking for work. High unemployment can have wide-reaching negative consequences, including a reduction in spending on goods and services by consumers, which in turn leads to layoffs of workers who cannot sell those products or services. Moreover, long-term unemployment can erode professional skills and make it difficult to get a new job, as well as lead to a decline in personal well being.
Unemployment is measured using monthly surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These surveys ask a sample of households whether their members are employed or seeking employment. People who are not working and not looking for jobs are considered out of the workforce or not in the labor force, and are excluded from official estimates of unemployment.
Each month, the BLS releases a comprehensive report on the employment situation that includes national summary statistics and data on state-by-state trends. It also provides detailed information about the individuals in each survey, such as their age, sex, race or ethnicity, occupation, industry and length of time they have been unemployed.
The BLS has a number of different measures of unemployment, ranging from U-1 (the strictest measure) to U-6 (the most inclusive measure). A separate series of statistics called the JOLTS data tracks underemployment. This more expansive measure of labor market underutilization includes involuntary part-time workers who would prefer full-time hours; people who are marginally attached to the workforce, meaning they want to work but have not searched for a job recently; and so-called structurally unemployed individuals, whose lack of a job is due to a shift in demand for their skills or because they never learned those skills.
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