Employment Situation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has the responsibility of measuring unemployment. Adults age 16 or over are divided and surveyed into different categories for best results. First being is employed, referring to people who are working (full or part time) as well as those taking a leave of absence for vacation, pregnancy, etc. The next category is for those that are unemployed. Unemployed refers to people that do not have a job, but are capable of working, and have actively searched for a job within the past four weeks. The third and final category covers those that are not in the labor force due to college, children, and so on. The BLS measures this data every month for about 60,000 households and produces a report called the Current Population Survey (Mankiw, 2012, p. 298-9) This data is accessible to the public and analyzed frequently by economists and students across the country. 

Mankiw states that the unemployment rate can be defined as “the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed” (p. 299).  Unemployment has consistently decreased over the last two years, beginning at 8.2 in March of 2012 and ending at 6.7 in March of 2014. However, this statistic does not mean that the rate did not fluctuate through small changes throughout the years. Around December of each year, the unemployment rate increased and then rapidly decreased again after a time period of one month. Demographics such as race and sex are important to take into consideration when analyzing this data. This report shows that more women became unemployed while more men became employed. Whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and teenagers had very slight changes in their unemployment rates. Out of those categories, teenagers hold the highest unemployment rate of 20.9% and Asians hold the lowest of 5.4% (Employment Situation, 2014, p. 1). The long-term unemployed are those that have not held a job for over 27 weeks. This category of people decreased over the year, thus concluding that more people were capable of finding a job. With these statistics and ideas in mind, it assumed that these trends will relatively stay the same for upcoming years. Society today proves that teenagers will continue to hold the fewest jobs due to the evident lack of higher education and overall need for a high substantial income. Discrimination is alive and well throughout this country. Until policy makers take this more seriously in regards to employment, these statistics will also remain relatively the same.  

The labor-force participation rate is explained by Mankiw as “the percentage of the total adult population of the United States that is in the labor force” (p. 299) or further defined as “the fraction of the population that has chosen to participate in the labor market” (p. 300).  For whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics over 20 years old the participation rate increased the slightest bit in March. This data shows more people participated in the work force. However, for white and Hispanic teenagers the participation rate increased by almost 2.5 and for black teenagers the participation rate decreased slightly (Employment Situation, 2014, p. 12-14). One can assume that people with a lower education had more participation in the work force, and those with a higher education had less participation in the work force (Employment Situation, 2014, p. 15).  With more jobs being created, government legislation participation rates will increase as well. These statistics regarding race and education were not surprising, and it is expected to stay relatively close unless policies are made to prevent these factors from effecting the employment rate as strongly as they do.

To conclude, the slightest differences were seen in the employment-population ratio, which includes the individuals of the working age that are both employed and unemployed (“Employment-To-Population Ratio”, 2014). There seems to be a direct correlation between participation rate and the employment-population ratio, when one increased the other increased as well. This data is essential to policy makers to improve the employment situation for the country. Economists and policy makers can team up to help prevent a crisis regarding employment through using both there areas of expertise. 

Works Cited

The Employment Situation – March 2014. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Mankiw, Gregory. (2012). Principles of Macroeconomics: Sixth Edition. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.