Labor Stats

Here are some numbers from March's Bureau of Labor Employment Situation Summary Table A of the Household Data report, seasonally adjusted.

The number of people who are actually employed dropped by 31,000 but the unemployment rate fell because the number of people looking for a job dropped by 164,000. So if you are unemployed and stopped looking for a job, you are not considered unemployed. That makes sense to someone.

This month those with a college degree have a 4.2% unemployment rate, while 12.6% of those who did not finish high school did not have a job. Teenagers have a 25% unemployment rate. That number falls with each ten-year increase in age, until we get to those who are over 55, who are down to only 6.2% unemployed. Women have a lower unemployment rate than men at all ages. Married men and women (spouse present!) seem to fare better, with an average unemployment rate of 5.2%. Married men tend to lose jobs faster during a recession but also get back to work quicker.

If you had never been married you had a 12.5% chance of being out of work in March. Asian-Americans do slightly better in most categories than whites, while African-Americans have almost twice the unemployment levels. Hispanics are about halfway between whites and blacks across the board. Married white couples have a lower rate (5.3%) than Asian couples (6.2%) while never-married whites are unemployed at 10.5% and Asians at 9.2%.

Not sure if these numbers mean very much other than the less you have achieved, the less you will achieve. And, of course, "Keep walking past the Black stats. Nothing to see here, nothing to see."