Data for the Classroom from
Ed Dolan’s Econ Bloghttp://dolanecon.blogspot.com/ U.S. Job Growth Weak inAugust but Unemployment Indicators Improve Posted Sept. 7, 2012 Terms of Use: These slides are made available under Creative Commons License Attribution— Share Alike 3.0 . You are free to use these slides as a resource for your economics classes together with whatever textbook you are using. If you like the slides, you may also want to take a look at my textbook, Introduction to Economics, from BVT Publishers.

Job Growth Weak in August
The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed an increase of just 96,000 payroll jobs in August, the 23rd straight month of job growth An increase of 103,000 in private nonfarm jobs was partly offset by a decrease of 7,000 in government jobs. The June figure was revised down by 19,000 to a very weak increase of 45,000 jobs. July job gains were revised down by 22,000 to 141,000 Posted Sept. 7, 2012 on Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog http://dolanecon.blogspot.com

Unemployment Rate Falls Back to
April Level The unemployment fell to 8.1 percent in August, returning to the four-year low reached in April The unemployment rate is the ratio of unemployed persons to the labor force. The number of employed workers and the labor force both decreased in July The unemployment rate is based on a separate survey of households that includes self-employed and farm workers Posted Sept. 7, 2012 on Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog http://dolanecon.blogspot.com

Employment-Population Ratio Falls Again in
August The employment to population ratio fell to 58.3 percent in August and remains just a bit above its all-time low of 58.2 percent reached last year The ratio is affected both by cyclical factors and by long-run trends, especially an aging population Posted Sept. 7, 2012 on Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog http://dolanecon.blogspot.com

Broad vs. Standard Unemployment Rate
The BLS also provides a broader measure of job-market stress, U-6 The numerator of U-6 includes  Unemployed persons  Marginally attached persons who would like to work but are not looking because they think there are no jobs, or for personal reasons  Part-time workers who would prefer full-time work but can’t find it The denominator includes the labor force plus the marginally attached U-6 fell to 14.7 percent in August Posted Sept. 7, 2012 on Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog http://dolanecon.blogspot.com

Long-Term Unemployment Falls, but Remains
High Not all the news was bad. The percentage of all unemployed workers who have been out of work 27 weeks or longer fell to its lowest level since the end of 2009 At the same time, however, both the mean and median duration of unemployment increased Posted Sept. 7, 2012 on Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog http://dolanecon.blogspot.com