Simple Formula: Unemployment Rate

Let’s start with the simple formula. It seems simple. We only need two numbers: the number of unemployed people and the number of people in the labor force.
But counting who is in each of these two variables can be tricky. Complicating matters is that people can move into and out of these groups from month-to-month.
We’ll start on the next page by looking at who’s in the labor force.

Let’s start with the simple formula. It seems simple. We only need two numbers: the number of unemployed people and the number of people in the labor force.