Friday, February 6, 2009

U3 and U6 Unemployment

U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers* (Real Unemployment)

*Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. For further information, see "BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures," in the October 1995 issue of the Monthly Labor Review.

Source: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm


Notice that the higher unemployment is the greater the difference between U-3 and U-6......

(Click to Enlarge)



















No comments: