Unemployment discusstion
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)
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?
