In the United States, unemployment includes all persons who, during the reference week:
Had no employment,
Were available for work, except for temporary illness, and
Had actively sought work during the 4-week period ending with the reference week.
Active job search methods are those that have the potential to result in a job offer without further action on the part of
the jobseeker. For example, sending a resume to an employer would be considered active, whereas simply reading newspaper
advertisements would not.
Persons who were waiting to start a new job must have fulfilled these criteria to be considered unemployed. However,
persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work.
The unemployment rate represents the percentage of persons in the labor force who
are unemployed.
How is unemployment measured?
Because unemployment insurance records, which many people think are the source of total unemployment data, relate only to
persons who have applied for such benefits, and since it is impractical to actually count every unemployed person each
month, the United States Government conducts a monthly sample survey to measure the extent of unemployment in the country.
Use of a labor force survey to count the unemployed, a longstanding practice in the United States, is also common in most
foreign industrialized countries. Countries in the European Union are now required to use a labor force survey to count
the unemployed, although some had previously depended on administrative sources, such as employment office registrations or
unemployment insurance records, to measure unemployment. Countries also may continue to also produce unemployment statistics
from administrative sources. Administrative statistics from employment office registrations or unemployment insurance
records relate only to persons who have registered or applied for benefits and are not an accurate measure of total
unemployment because only a subset of workers is covered. Labor force surveys, on the other hand, provide a more complete
measure of unemployment because the data are based on a representative sample of the population. However, concepts and
definitions of unemployment in labor force surveys may difer from country to country, and thus BLS makes adjustments to
provide foreign-country data that are more comparable with U.S. concepts and definitions.
Annual averages of unemployment figures and other labor force statistics adjusted to U.S. concepts are presented in this
report. BLS also publishes a monthly report with seasonally ajdusted monthly and quarterly unemployment rates and employment indexes, at
www.bls.gov/ilc/intl_unemployment_rates_monthly.htm.
Box 1 Youth unemployment
In "A portrait of the youth labor market in 13 countries, 1980-2007," (Monthly Labor Review, July 2009, pp. 3-21, at
www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/07/art1full.pdf), Gary
Martin analyzes the youth unemployment picture in a selected group of industrialized countries over the 1980–2007 period.
Data are presented for the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea and 8 European countries.
The article begins with historical background information, providing a context for which the current youth labor market
situation can be understood. Trends for a wide variety of labor market indicators are then discussed, including
unemployment rates by age, labor force participation rates, and the employment population ratio among students ages 15 to
24.
Alternative measures of unemployment
Although there is only one official unemployment rate in the United States, several other rates with alternative
definitions of unemployment are also published by BLS. These rates are known as U1 through U6 and have the following
definitions:
U-1: Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U-2: Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force
U-3: Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)
U-4: Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers
U-5: Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers
U-6: Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers
(A brief discussion of discouraged and marginally attached workers is provided in the Who is not in the labor force? section.)
U-3, the official unemployment rate, is the most widely reported by the media and, most importantly, it is the basis of the
international comparisons presented in this report.
Although BLS does not prepare regular international comparisons of alternative measures of unemployment as described in
this section, several articles have been published on the topic, including:
Toshihiko Yamagami, “Utilization of labor resources in Japan and the United States,” Monthly Labor Review, April 2002, at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/04/art3full.pdf.
Other unemployment series
Four organizations compile internationally comparable annual series of unemployment rates for selected countries:
The ILC division of BLS publishes unemployment rates adjusted to U.S. concepts, as described in this report.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) publishes ILO-comparable unemployment rates for 30 countries. The rates are based on ILO concepts, which are broader than U.S. concepts.
EUROSTAT publishes harmonized unemployment rates based on its own interpretation of ILO concepts for European Union countries. Since 1992, EUROSTAT concepts are similar to U.S. concepts, but some differences remain.
OECD publishes Harmonized Unemployment Rates (HURs) based on its own interpretation of ILO concepts for 34 member countries. For 1983 onward, OECD uses EUROSTAT’s harmonized unemployment rates for European Union countries.
Footnotes: (b) Break in series; see Country notes for more information. (na) Not available.
NOTE: Teenagers are defined as 16- to 19-year-olds in the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; and as 15- to 19-year-olds in
Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Footnotes: (b) Break in series; see Country notes for more information. (na) Not available.
NOTE: Youth are defined as 16- to 24-year-olds in the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; and as 15- to 24-year-olds in
Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
