Labor Market Statistics and Trends

Stuart Hruza

4/18/14

Econ122

Dr. Kassens

The unemployment rate as of march 2012 stayed constant at 6.7 percent and hasn’t seen much change since December. It seems to be that it is on a steady decline, but will slow down as it reaches the natural rate of unemployment. It will more than likely level off at just under 6 percent. Among genders unemployment among women rose to 6.2 percent as men’s fell to 6.2 percent. Constant with most of history the traditionally discriminated against groups show a higher unemployment rate than white individuals, who at a 6.9 percent unemployment rate. This is significantly lower than African Americans who are at 12.8 percent.

The employment population ratio as of March was 58.9 percent, this is a .4 increase from a year ago. This seems to be on a steady rise which is beneficial to our economies ability to create jobs. As this continues to increase the economies unemployment rate should drop. Just as in the unemployment rate there was a big distinction between African Americans and whites.

The labor force participation rate as of march was 63.2 percent which is a drop of .1 since 2013. However this is a gain of .2 percent from February. This has to do with the large number of individuals returning to the labor force, about 331,000 in the last month. There was another return of close to 100,000 individuals before between January and February as well. This means that some of adult population is coming back into the labor force.

As for the trends in 2014, the unemployment rate should level out around the natural rate of unemployment. As we are on the upswing and exiting the great recession most of the major labor market statistics will be changing for the positive. One of the major worries that the country faces is the baby boomer generation exiting the labor force. With the exit of a big group the employment, population ratio will show a drop. As they leave they will need people to support them through social security. This will cause a reallocation of the US tax dollar from other areas of the economy to social security. This is money we could be using to improve human capital such as education. Improving education has second order effects that could help to improve other markets, eventually returning benefits to the retirees of the nation.