ECON 21 Principles of Microeconomics : About Unemployment Rate

The role of Supply & Demand in setting market price- articles demonstrating examples of supply or demand shocks (such as natural disasters) and their impact on the market price of a good or group of goods due to market imbalances caused by the shock

 

Emerging Markets -articles related to new or innovative companies that have found a niche in emerging markets domestically or internationally

 

Comparative Advantage- Articles demonstrating examples of comparative advantage and how this has impacted the balance of trade between one or more countries

 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -GDP is considered the standard metric for measuring a country's economic health. Provide an article and analysis on the U.S. GDP results for the past year (1Q 2016 TO 1Q 2017). Analyze some of the prime factors that have affected our level of GDP? Have we been producing our goods & services at an annualized rate of 3% or more needed to maintain our standard of living?  If not, why?

 

Unemployment Rate- Analysis on the current unemployment rate. How does the labor force participation rate impact the overall employment picture?  What areas of the economy are labor trends improving?  What are the underlying causes?

Introduction 

In an economy, unemployment rate refers to a situation where a fraction of the labor forces unable to find jobs suitable jobs for them. The paper gives a brief description about the existing unemployment in United States. The related aspects of overall unemployment are labor- force participation rate, areas where labor trends are improving and underlying factors affecting overall employment status in the economy.

Article summary on unemployment rate 

Unemployment rate

The recent headline unemployment rate is recorded as 4.4% (bls.gov, 2017). Population over the age of sixteen increased by 206 thousand and consequently labor force boosted by 77 thousand. Employment on the other hand goes down by 74 thousand increasing the unemployment percentage.

Figure 1: Overtime Unemployment rate

Unemployment among prime age group 

Unemployment among age group ranging between 25 to 54 years is less volatile that that in the school, collage years. The age group 55-64 is ages when most people take retirement from their jobs.

Figure 2: Unemployment rate for the age group 25-54

A more sobering measure for labor force participation rate

The labor-force participation rate is computed by dividing Civilian labor force by national population. The moving average method used to calculate labor force participation suggests it requires 1.9 million additional people to match its peak rate in 2008 and 3.2 million people to match its peak rate in the century.

Figure 3: Labor force participation rate for prime age group

The need for so many people to for recovery in participation rate is because of lack of encouragement for participating in the labor force (investing.com, 2017).

Conclusion

The article summarizes the current employment status in US. The unemployment rate in the economy goes up. Members in the labor force increases at a much faster pace than people joined to new jobs. Labor force participation is also declining and the economy needs a significant number of additional labor force participation to match peak rate of the economy.

References

State Employment and Unemployment Summary. (2017). Bls.gov. Retrieved 17 September 2017, from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

U.S. Workforce Recovery: August Unemployment Ticks Up. (2017). investing.com. Retrieved 17 September 2017, from https://www.investing.com/analysis/us-workforce-recovery-200212055