mid-2008, with the unemployment rate rising from 4.8% in February 2008 to 10.1%
in October 2009. What did the rise in the unemployment rate mean, and why was it
such a big factor in people’s lives? To understand why policy makers pay so much at-
tention to employment and unemployment, we need to understand how they are
both defined and measured.
Defining and Measuring Unemployment
It’s easy to define employment: you’re employedif and only if you have a job.
Unemployment, however, is a more subtle concept. Just because a person isn’t work-
ing doesn’t mean that we consider that person unemployed. For example, in December
2008 there were 32 million retired workers in the United States receiving Social Secu-
rity checks. Most of them were probably happy that they were no longer working, so we
wouldn’t consider someone who has settled into a comfortable, well -earned retirement
to be unemployed. There were also 7 million disabled U.S. workers receiving benefits
because they were unable to work. Again, although they weren’t working, we wouldn’t
normally consider them to be unemployed.
The U.S. Census Bureau, the federal agency that collects data on unemployment,
considers the unemployed to be those who are “jobless, looking for jobs, and available
for work.” Retired people don’t count because they aren’t looking for jobs; the disabled
don’t count because they aren’t available for work. More specifically, an individual is
considered unemployed if he or she doesn’t currently have a job and has been actively
seeking a job during the past four weeks. So the unemployedare people who are ac-
tively looking for work but aren’t currently employed.
A country’s labor force is the sum of the employed and the unemployed—that is,
the people who are currently working and the people who are currently looking for
work. The labor force participation rate, defined as the share of the working -age
population that is in the labor force, is calculated as follows:
(12-1) Labor force participation rate =× 100Theunemployment rate,defined as the percentage of the total number of people
in the labor force who are unemployed, is calculated as follows:
(12-2) Unemployment rate =× 100To estimate the numbers that go into calculating the unemployment rate, the U.S.
Census Bureau carries out a monthly survey called the Current Population Survey,
which involves interviewing a random sample of 60,000 American families. People are
asked whether they are currently employed. If they are not employed, they are asked
whether they have been looking for a job during the past four weeks. The results are
then scaled up, using estimates of the total population, to estimate the total number of
employed and unemployed Americans.
The Significance of the Unemployment Rate
In general, the unemployment rate is a good indicator of how easy or difficult it is to
find a job given the current state of the economy. When the unemployment rate is low,
nearly everyone who wants a job can find one. In 2000, when the unemployment rate
averaged 4%, jobs were so abundant that employers spoke of a “mirror test” for getting
a job: if you were breathing (therefore, your breath would fog a mirror), you could find
work. By contrast, in 2009, the unemployment rate in 17 states rose to over 10% (over
15% in Michigan), with many highly qualified workers having lost their jobs and hav-
ing a hard time finding new ones. Although the unemployment rate is a good indicator
of current labor market conditions, it is not a perfect measure.
Number of unemployed workers
Labor forceLabor force
Population age 16 and oldermodule 12 The Meaning and Calculation of Unemployment 119
Section 3 Measurement of Economic Performance
Employedpeople are currently holding
a job in the economy, either full time or
part time.
Unemployedpeople are actively looking
for work but aren’t currently employed.
Thelabor forceis equal to the sum of
the employed and the unemployed.
Thelabor force participation rateis
the percentage of the population aged
16 or older that is in the labor force.
Theunemployment rateis the
percentage of the total number of people
in the labor force who are unemployed.