Question

1. The employment and unemployment data is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Please go to bls.gov
Select Economic Releases Tab
Click on Employment and Unemployment Monthly
Click on Employment Situation (HTML) under Monthly data
Click on Employment Situation Summary Table A, seasonally adjusted (second item in table of contents)

Please answer the following questions

a) What is the unemployment rate in May 2019 (The June 2019 data will be published on July 5th. See the economic indicators calendar: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/calendars/nationalecon_cal.html) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.b) How did the unemployment rate change since last year the same period?

c) How did the civilian labor force change since last year the same period? What is civilian labor force and what is the reason do you think for this change?

d) How did participation rate change since last year the same period? What is participation rate and what is the reason do you think for this change?

e) Since the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed in the civilian labor force, can you calculate the current unemployment rate using the data in the table. Compare it with the unemployment rate given in the table. Did you get it right?

f) Please check the unemployment rates for different gender, race, age group, education level and let us know what strikes you the most.

g) Please check the reasons for unemployment and duration of unemployment data, what does that tell you about the economic situation in general?

h) How did the 'discouraged workers' data change since last year the same period? What is discouraged worker? What does this data tell you about the economic situation in general?

i) How did the part time workers for economic reasons data (including 'slack work or business conditions' and 'could find only part time work' change since last year the same period?

j) Unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. Do you agree that the unemployment data tells us about the economic situation in general?

Answer 1

The above is the reference table

a) From the table, it can be found that unemployment rate (in the row: Total, 16 yrs and over) for May 2019 was 3.6%

b) Unemployment rate in may 2018 was 3.8% and in may 2019, it was 3.6%. So unemployment rate has declined by 0.2%

c) Civilian labor force was 161,667 in May 2018, and 162,646 in May 2019. So it increased by 162646-161667= 979. BLS defines civilian labor force as sum of all private industry, State and local government workers. Federal Government, military and agricultural workers are not included in the civilian labor force. Reasons for this increase could be an increase in working population - increase in the number of people 16 and above who are actively seeking jobs, increase in employment of people = in private enterprises, state and local government departments, improvement in their education, increase in total population, i.e increased number of births which would make people seek employment to provide their children, federal policies- like an income tax credit, etc.

d) Participation rate has been the same in May 2018 and May 2019 at 62.8%. Participation rate measures an economy's active labor force. It is calculated as the ratio of civilian labor force to the civilian non-institutional population. It refers to the number of people who are either currently employed or are actively seeking work. For May 2019, it is 161667/257454= 0.6279 = 62.8%.

e) Let's calculate for May 2019: unemployed people = 5888, total civilian labor force= 162646, so unemployment rate= 5888/162646 = .036 = 3.6%, which is what is given in the table