Is the unemployment rate based on the number of people who are currently collecting unemployment payments? If not, what other factors are included?
In: Economics
It depends on how “unemployed” is defined by the agency creating the statistic, so it’s a good smart data habit to ask this question when you see the it presented.
In the US “unemployed” is defined as follows and is contrasted against “not in the labor force”.
1) the person is not employed during the week being measured.
2) They were ‘available to work’ during the week being measured
3) They made at least one ‘specific attempt’ to find a job during the month *preceding* the week being measured.
so the unemployment rate is all the people above divided by number of people with jobs.
For example; babies, retired people, or people just sitting around all day doing nothing are *not* considering unemployed, they are ‘not in the labor force’. Also, people who aren’t working but aren’t looking for work because they reasonably expect to be rehired quickly are *not* considered unemployed either.
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