The unemployment rate is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. The rate is found by dividing the number of unemployed by the total civilian labor force. On May 6, 2011, the BLS published the most recent unemployment rate for April, 2011 of 9.0% (actually it is 8.960, up .0132 from 8.828% in March 2011). This was determined by dividing the number of unemployed – 13,747,000 – by the total civilian labor force of 153,421,000.
It is interesting to note that the number of unemployed in April 2011 is down by 205,000 from the month before and has decreased by 1,391,000 since April 2010. The total civilian labor force is up by 15,000 over March but down by 1,099,000 since this time last year.
The unemployment rate above includes all types of workers—construction workers, farmers, etc. The rate for management, professional and related types of workers in April was fixed at 4.0%. This rate is the lowest it has been in two years—since April 2009. For people who have college degrees, the unemployment rate in April was fixed at 4.5%. This rate has gradually increased by .1% per month since January 2011.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE TO BE ZERO. Full employment, where everyone who is qualified and who wants a job has a job is considered just under 6%. So in the category of management, professional and related jobs, we are operating at full employment.
This is the type of information that rarely makes it into the public domain. We published this type of data at the first of the year that listed the unemployment rate at 4.4% for workers with a college degree and at least 3 years of experience. That is still full employment. By way of comparison though, in 2007 this same group was at 2.2% unemployment.