Unemployment Rate Calculator
Calculate the unemployment rate for any population by entering the number of employed and unemployed people. The unemployment rate is a key economic indicator that shows the percentage of the labor force actively looking for work but unable to find it.
The unemployment rate is calculated as: Unemployed / (Employed + Unemployed) x 100. Only people who are actively seeking employment count as unemployed. People who have stopped looking for work (discouraged workers) are not included in either the employed or unemployed count and are considered outside the labor force.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the official U.S. unemployment rate monthly. The labor force includes all people age 16 and older who are either employed or actively looking for work. As of recent data, the U.S. labor force is roughly 167 million people.
There are actually six measures of unemployment (U-1 through U-6). The headline rate is U-3, which counts people without jobs who have actively searched in the past four weeks. U-6 is the broadest measure and includes discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons. U-6 is typically 3-5 percentage points higher than U-3.
A healthy unemployment rate is generally considered to be around 4-5%, representing what economists call the 'natural rate of unemployment.' Some unemployment is always present because people are between jobs, entering the workforce, or changing careers.