March un-employment report Jon Paige

Jon Paige

Dr. Kassens

With the most recent economic recession the unemployment rate rose especially with the crash of the housing market. With the crash of the housing market there was a significant loss in jobs that contributed to the unemployment rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a report every month keeping track of the unemployment rate in the U.S. The BLS surveys 60,000 household and they categorize three groups that add to the unemployment rate. The three groups that are used to categorize the 60,000 households are the labor force, unemployed, and the employed. These three groups are what the BLS uses to figure out what the rate of unemployment is.

The summary of the situation report released by the BLS the rate of unemployment stayed the same at 6.7% from December 2013 to April 2014. With the consistency with the unemployment there was growth in employment. For example after the housing market coming to a complete crash leaving many people in the construction business out of jobs. In the month of March the trend was an increase of 19,000 and the past year the employment increased by 151,000. With the constancy with the unemployment rate this shows that the population are finding jobs slowly but surely. There has been a slow decrease in the unemployment rate from October 2009 with it being highest of 10% and in April 4^th the percent being at 6.7. Also another slow decrease is the unemployment rate with the many different races living within the United States. This shows that the unemployment rate decrease is happening al across the board with everyone. This means more people are finding jobs and the employment rate is increasing while the unemployment rate is decreasing.

The labor force participation ratio had only a .1% decrease from the previous year in the month of March. With being such a small amount of change with this statistical value there is no reason to have any concern with the ratio with the unemployment rate. Regardless of the change in the unemployment rate over the span of a year the labor force ratio remain almost the same. There doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the rates of unemployment to the ratio of the labor force.

The employment rate is slowly decreasing which is a good sign. This means the recovery of our economy and allowing the skilled workers back into the work force. From what the statistics show there will be a decrease in the unemployment rate and increase in employment and participation rate as well. This will help bring more money within our economy.