Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Share of workers experiencing unemployment at record low

December 16, 1998

Of the more than 145 million persons who participated in the labor force in 1997, 15.6 million were unemployed at some point during the year. This translates into a "work-experience unemployment rate" of barely 10.8 percent.

Historical work experience unemployment rate
[Chart data—TXT]

At 10.8 percent, the work-experience unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since the series was first calculated in 1958. The percentage of workers with some unemployment had been nearly 16 percent in the recession trough of 1991, and almost as high in 1992, the first full year of recovery.

The work experience measure of unemployment counts anyone who was unemployed at any time during the year. Because people move into and out of unemployment all the time, this count was more than twice the number unemployed in the average month of 1997.

These data are a product of the Current Population Survey. Additional information is available from news release USDL 98-470, "Work Experience of the Population in 1997."

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Share of workers experiencing unemployment at record low at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/1998/dec/wk3/art03.htm (visited October 31, 2024).

OF INTEREST
spotlight
Recent editions of Spotlight on Statistics


triangle