Unemployment Rate August 2019

Unemployment Rate August 2019

US Jobless Rate Steady for 3rd Month at 3.7%

The US unemployment rate came in at 3.7 percent in August 2019, unchanged from the previous two month’s figures and in line with market expectations. The number of unemployed persons decreased by 19 thousand to 6.0 million while employment rose by 590 thousand to 157.9 million.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.4 percent), adult women (3.3 percent), teenagers (12.6 percent), Whites (3.4 percent), Blacks (5.5 percent), Asians (2.8 percent), and Hispanics (4.2 percent) showed little or no change in August.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.2 million in August and accounted for 20.6 percent of the unemployed.

In August, the labor force participation rate edged up to 63.2 percent in August but has shown little change, on net, thus far this year. The employment-population ratio, at 60.9 percent, also edged up over the month and is up by 0.6 percentage point over the year.

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 397,000 to 4.4 million in August; this increase follows a decline of similar magnitude in July. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs.

In August, 1.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, little different from a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 467,000 discouraged workers in August, about unchanged from a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.1 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in August had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

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