How the December 2009 unemployment rate held steady
So the December 09 unemployment rate held steady at 10% … yeah right. This goes to the issue of how to read and use economic indicators. The rate stayed were it was because a million people were dropped from the count of unemployed due to going passed the magic 27 week number.
It’s very important when reading the BLS Employment Situation report that you understand how it’s laid out and all the values that need analyzed. The report is available at BLS Employment Situation report and I refer you first to table A. Look for the Civilian labor force data at the top of the table and the not in labor force values just below. You will see that 847000 workers were removed from the labor force numbers and added to the not in labor force. Those workers now do not count in the version of the unemployment number that is most used by the media and politicians. I also advise examining table C and all the information it gives on the decline of the percentage of the available population that participates in the workforce.
There are actually 6 different measures of employment that BLS provides. These are know as U-1 through U-6 which each providing a relatively greater inclusion of who is counted as unemployed. To get the more complete number that includes workers who have been unemployed for a longer period of time and those that BLS considers as marginally attached.
using the December 09 numbers the U-3 values are the ones presented by the media and were 10%, the U-6 value however shows 17.3%. Which is approriate for your use is of course dependent on your task but I imagine we can guess why the lower value gets the press time.
On closing, The Bureau of Labor Statistics is one of your most important sites for economic indicators. Learn to use it and explore what is available.
