Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate measures the share of the labor force, defined as all people who are either employed or actively seeking work, that is currently without a job, and it is calculated in the United States from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly Current Population Survey of about 60,000 households. First systematically tracked in the US in the 1940s, the headline U-3 rate is the most widely cited labor-market statistic worldwide, supplemented by broader measures such as U-6, which also counts marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers, and equivalent national rates are compiled by labor agencies in nearly every country as the primary gauge of labor-market slack.