Unemployment Rate
The share of a county's civilian labor force that is unemployed, as estimated monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The share of the civilian labor force that is unemployed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines the unemployment rate as "the unemployed percent of the civilian labor force [i.e., 100 times (unemployed/civilian labor force)]" (LAUS Questions and Answers).
The denominator matters as much as the numerator. The civilian labor force covers only people counted as employed or unemployed; those not looking for work are outside it entirely. Unemployed persons are "all persons who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment some time during the 4 week-period ending with the reference week." People who stop searching leave the labor force, and a county's rate can fall for that reason as well as because people found jobs.
These are the official local unemployment figures. The same estimates are used by federal programs to allocate funds and determine area eligibility for assistance.
Metrics in this family#
Unemployment rate
The county's annual average unemployment rate for the most recent full year of published data. An annual average is used because the Bureau does not seasonally adjust county series; a single month would carry seasonal swings from weather, harvests, holidays, and school calendars alongside the underlying labor market (Seasonal Adjustment).
Unemployment trend
Change in the county's annual average rate over 1, 3, or 5 years, selectable in the tool.
Because the unemployment rate is itself a rate, its change is reported in percentage points rather than as a percentage change. A percentage change of a percentage is dominated by where a place started, so it is not comparable between counties at different levels. Percentage-point changes are.
Considerations#
County estimates run monthly from January 2015 through the most recent release. Publication lags the reference month by roughly four to five weeks, so the most recent full year available is not the current year.
Figures revise. The Bureau reworks up to five years of previous data each January to bring in new inputs and population controls, so a trend computed today may differ slightly from one computed a year ago.
County figures are produced by the Handbook method, a building-block approach drawing on unemployment insurance claims, payroll employment, and survey inputs rather than a survey of each county. In small counties, where a few large employers dominate covered employment, the resulting series can move sharply.
Birdseye displays census tracts, and no tract-level unemployment series exists. Each tract shows the value published for the county containing it, which is exact containment rather than an estimate — but it means every tract in a county shows the same rate, and real variation between neighborhoods is not represented. Coverage reaches 83,529 of the 85,395 tracts we carry.
References#
- 1LAUS Questions and Answershttps://www.bls.gov/lau/laufaq.htm
- 2Seasonal Adjustmenthttps://www.bls.gov/lau/lauseas.htm