Unemployment Statistics and What They Mean.

Abstract

Jobless rate drops to 6.0 percent, read a typical headline in newspapers throughout the country on October 8, 1971. The change from 6.1 to 6.0 percent of the labor force between August and September 1971 was reported accurately, but the implication of an improvement in the employment situation was misleading. This is so because the unemployment rate is obtained by a sample survey. Any change of one-tenth of one percent may be attributable to sampling error and, therefore, not statistically significant. Unemployment, of course, is more than a statistic that measures our economic well-being and the degree to which immediately available manpower is utilized. Unemployment statistics represent people people trying to support their families or augment family income, people seeking their first jobs, people changing jobs, people losing jobs, but first and foremost, people. Whether viewed as a measure of economic well-being or as people with employment difficulties, however, the data are often misused, misunderstood, and even criticized.