Breanna Massy
Professor Shahin
ECO 2610
5 October 2015
Unemployment
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is responsible for measuring
unemployment, which is a sector of the Department of Labor. Every month
unemployment is measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and they produce the data
and other aspects of the labor market. The other aspects that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics identifies are: the types of employment, length of the average workweek, and
the duration of unemployment. The data comes from a survey of 60,000 households,
which is called a current population survey. Based upon the current population survey, the
Bureau of Labor Statistics bases how the questions were answered by anyone from age
16 and older into three categories: Employed, unemployed or not in the labor force.
Being employed consists of those who worked as paid employees, working in
their own business, or worked as unpaid workers in a family members business. Full time
and part time workers are counted. Unemployment consists of not being employed, not
available for work, tried to find employment but wasn’t able to find anything. Not in the
labor force consists of both of the previous categories mentioned, some examples of
people not in the work force are: full-time students, homemakers, and retirees. 1
1 “The Great Depression.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
Mankiw, N. Gregory. “Unemployment.” Brief Principles of Macroeconomics. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. page. Print.
The Great Depression- “ a long severe recession in an economy or market”
Recession- a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are
reduced, generally identified by a fall in the GDP in two quarters
Some may think that measuring the amount of unemployment is simple,
straightforward task, but it is not. Even though it is easy to distinguish someone who has
a full time job and someone who does not, it i2s much harder to find out if someone is
Unemployed and/or a person who is not in the labor force. Statistics show that more than
1/3 of the unemployed are recent entrants into the labor force. Most of these entrants
include younger workers that are trying to look for their first job. Another statistic of this
would be retired people who haven’t been working, but want to get back into the work
force. All of these reasons are why unemployment can be so hard to track, because they
are changing all the time.
There is a term called discouraged workers, which are individuals who want to
work but are unable to find jobs and have just given up looking for a job, and they don’t
show up on unemployment statistics. Because it is so hard for the Bureau of Labor
