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Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey

The Current Population Survey (CPS) provides a wealth of information on the nation’s labor force including data on the employed, unemployed, and those not in the labor force. Key CPS measures are the unemployment rate, labor force participation rate, and employment-population ratio.

Explore CPS topics to learn about people’s work and job search activity and various demographic characteristics.

Notices

  • Changes to CPS Public Use Microdata Files Read More »
  • The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the Employment Situation Read More »
  • Supplemental data measuring the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the labor market Read More »

Charts

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Latest Numbers

RSS
Seasonally Adjusted

Unemployment Rate: 4.1% in Dec 2024 Historical Data

Change in Unemployment Level: -235,000 in Dec 2024 Historical Data

Change in Employment Level: +478,000 in Dec 2024 Historical Data

Change in Civilian Labor Force Level: +243,000 in Dec 2024 Historical Data

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate: 62.5% in Dec 2024 Historical Data

Employment-Population Ratio: 60.0% in Dec 2024 Historical Data

Annual Averages

Unemployment Rate: 4.0% for 2024 Historical Data

Unemployment Level: 6,761,000 for 2024 Historical Data

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Videos

Understanding BLS Unemployment Statistics

Learn how the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the unemployment rate.

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News Releases

//EMPSIT Auto-Suppl Test ZUNI3PO 3/25/2025// Payroll employment essentially unchanged in...

03/25/2025

//EMPSIT Auto-Suppl Test ZUNI3PO 3/25/2025// Total nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in October (+12,000),
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//WKYENG QCT Test via ZUNI3PO 11/15/2024// Median weekly earnings of full-time wage are...

10/17/2024

//WKYENG QCT Test via ZUNI3PO 11/15/2024// Median weekly earnings of the nation's 115.3 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,001 in the third quarter of 2021 (not seasonally adjusted). This was 0.7 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 5.3 percent in the CPI-U.
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Next Release

The Employment Situation for February 2025 is scheduled to be released on March 25, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

See the CPS release calendar for a schedule of news releases on other topics.

Publications

Spotlight on Statistics

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covid -African Americans in the U.S. Labor Force

African American or Black History Month originally began as a week of observance in February 1926. To celebrate Black History Month, 2018, this issue of Spotlight on Statistics presents some historical data and projections on Blacks in the labor force. read more »

Monthly Labor Review

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COVID-19 tagging Who chooses part-time work and why?

This article focuses on part-time workers who chose to work part time in 2016 and the noneconomic reasons for doing so. read more »

BLS Reports

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Worckbench Patch 732_20200310 Test

In 2020, the overall unemployment rate (jobless rate) for the United States was 3.9 percent; however, the rate varied across race and ethnicity groups. Among the race groups, jobless rates were higher than the national rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives (6.6 percent), Blacks or African Americans (6.5 percent), people categorized as being of Two or More Races (5.5 percent), and Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (5.3 percent). read more »