Understanding Unemployment and Employment Data

1.         Ask: What
does it mean to be unemployed?

Elicit students opinions. 
Most will simply say “someone who is not working.” Explain that it is
not as simple as “not working.”

2.         Go to the
Bureau of labor Statistics web resource, “How the Government Measures
Unemployment,” http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm.

Review items 1-6 on the web page.   This information provides a quick
introduction to the basic concepts of employment and unemployment data.

Use the examples of Elizabeth
Lloyd, Steve Hogan, and Linda Coleman (What
are the basic concepts of employment and unemployment?)  to check for understanding of the primary
classifications: employed, unemployed and not in the labor force.

3.  Go to the most
recent BLS “Employment Situation” announcement: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.   Review the most recent U.S. employment and
unemployment data. 

•  Identify the
current level of employment and recent change. http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS12000000&output_view=net_1mth

•  Identify the
current unemployment rate and recent changes. 
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000

NOTE: The BLS releases national employment data on the first or second
Friday of each month at 8:30 am.

For classroom lessons on employment and unemployment data,
go to www.EconEdLink.org.  Sort the grade 9-12 lessons for the most
recent and past lessons on “Focus on Economic data: Unemployment.”  These lessons are written monthly from
September through May.

4.  Clarify the BLS definitions
of the key concepts of employment and unemployment:

Employed persons
consist of: persons who did any work for pay or profit during the survey
reference week; persons who did at least 15 hours of unpaid work in a
family-operated enterprise; and persons who were temporarily absent from their
regular jobs because of illness, vacation, bad weather, industrial dispute, or
various personal reasons. The employment-population ratio represents the
proportion of the civilian non-institutional population that is employed.

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work
in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Persons who were
not working and were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been
temporarily laid off are also included as unemployed. Receiving benefits from
the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program has no bearing on whether a person is
classified as unemployed.

The unemployment rate
represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

The labor force
is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. The labor force participation
rate is the labor force as a percent of the civilian non-institutional
population. Browse various labor force
characteristics.

Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category
includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other
family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work.
Information is collected on their desire for and availability for work, job
search activity in the prior year, and reasons for not currently searching. See
also discouraged
workers.

5.  Illustrate how the
unemployment rate is determined:

•   If the labor force
is 1,000,000 people, and                  1,000,000

•   The number of
unemployed is 50,000.                            50,000

•   The unemployment
rate is                                                  .05
(5 percent)