LeeCoppock.com
Econ News You Can Use
Category: Unemployment
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The unemployment rate in remained steady at 5.5% in March. The graph below shows the steady decline over the past year, falling from 6.6% one year ago. The number of long-term unemployed also stayed constant in March. However, this number decreased by 1.1 million over the past year. Jobs growth did slow in March, with…
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The BLS released yet another positive jobs report this morning. Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 295,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate dropped to just 5.5% – the lowest level since May 2008. The question going forward is now: how close are we to the natural rate of unemployment? Many economists believe this is…
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The latest jobs report from the BLS offers a great teaching lesson about how the unemployment rate is calculated. Here's why: it is one of the best jobs reports we've had in a long time even though the unemployment rate actually went up. First, notice the 257,000 new jobs created in January. As the graph…
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The U.S. economy added 321,000 new jobs in november, extending the streak of positive jobs growth to fifty straight months. So far in 2014, nonfarm employment has grown by 2.65 million jobs or 221,000 jobs per month. As they are studying for finals, students might like to know which subjects relate to industries that…
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This morning, the BLS released the Employment Situation report for October and the news is very good. The unemployment rate is now back to 5.8% for the first time since July 2008. In addition, there were 214,000 new jobs added in October. The economy has added more thatn 200,000 jobs per month for nine straight months…
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I've blogged about this before (see here), but the labor force participation rate (LFPR) just keeps falling. Nobody sees this as positive news – more and more U.S. workers are sitting on the sidelines. The latest jobs report brought the good news of a falling unemployment rate, but part of this is because workers are…
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The unemployment rate dropped to 5.9 percent in September, the lowest level since July 2008. The last time our unemployment rate was below 6 percent, the economy was in the free fall of the Great Recession. The drop in unemployment was driven by strong jobs growth, with 248 thousand jobs added to nonfarm payrolls. …
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The unemployment rate for August ticked down to 6.1 percent, but this was not considered a great job report by most economists. The disappointing news is on the job growth side, with just 142,000 jobs added (see graph below). On the one hand, 142,000 NEW jobs can't be considered terrible news. On the other…
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The BLS released the March jobs report today and I think the news is positive. Even though the unemployment rate did not fall, it did hold steady at 6.7%. I see two pieces of good news in this report. First, 192,000 new jobs were created in March. This, along with a total of 37,000 jobs…
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Today's jobs report brought mixed news. On the one hand, 113,000 new jobs were added to the economy in January. On the other hand, the unemployment rate continued its decline, falling to 6.6 percent. For perspective, note that just one year ago the unemployment rate was 7.9 percent. One other piece of good news –…
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