>Doug wrote
>
>The jobs count comes from a survey of employers, and the unemployment
>rate froma survey of households, so they're not strictly comparable.
>But the reason the U rate declined is that the jobless dropped out of
>the labor force. The number of people classed as "not in the labor
>force" rose by 538,000.
>
>-Is this procedure standard for every country? I Brazil we changed
>the calculation of unemployment and our jobless rate jumped to 11%
>from 7,5%. I donZt know what were exactly the changes made, but one
>aspect that were criticized in our methodology was that youZre
>mentioning (people who gave up searching for a job are withdrawn
>from the workforce)
The BLS publishes several "alternative measures of labor underutilization." Here's an extract from the latest table. Their def of marginally attached is restricted to the category "not in labor force - want job now" - not the broader category of "not in labor force" without that qualification. The NILF category grew over 500,000 last month, but the "NILF - WJN" category grew by less than a third that much. So the labor force participation rate fell 0.2 points even though the unemployment rates dropped. Note that the official rate, U-3, is down 0.3 points on the year, while the U-6 is unchanged.
Doug
Dec. Nov. Dec.
2002 2003 2003
U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force 2.3 2.4 2.3
U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force 3.3 3.2 3.1
U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate). 6.0 5.9 5.7
U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers 6.3 6.2 6.0
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 6.9 6.8 6.7
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 9.9 10.1 9.9
NOTE: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. For further information, see "BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures," in the October 1995 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. Beginning in January 2003, data reflect revised population controls used in the household survey. Seasonally adjusted data have been revised to reflect updated seasonal adjustment factors.