In 1990, the unemployment rate of the United States stood at 5.6 percent. Since then there have been many significant fluctuations to this number - the 2008 financial crisis left millions of people without work, as did the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of 2022 and throughout 2023, the unemployment rate came to 3.6 percent, the lowest rate seen for decades. However, 2024 saw an increase up to four percent. For monthly updates on unemployment in the United States visit either the monthly national unemployment rate here, or the monthly state unemployment rate here. Both are seasonally adjusted. UnemploymentUnemployment is defined as a situation when an employed person is laid off, fired or quits his work and is still actively looking for a job. Unemployment can be found even in the healthiest economies, and many economists consider an unemployment rate at or below five percent to mean there is 'full employment' within an economy. If former employed persons go back to school or leave the job to take care of children they are no longer part of the active labor force and therefore not counted among the unemployed. Unemployment can also be the effect of events that are not part of the normal dynamics of an economy. Layoffs can be the result of technological progress, for example when robots replace workers in automobile production. Sometimes unemployment is caused by job outsourcing, due to the fact that employers often search for cheap labor around the globe and not only domestically. In 2022, the tech sector in the U.S. experienced significant lay-offs amid growing economic uncertainty. In the fourth quarter of 2022, more than 70,000 workers were laid off, despite low unemployment nationwide. The unemployment rate in the United States varies from state to state. In 2021, California had the highest number of unemployed persons with 1.38 million out of work.

Unemployment Rate in the United States increased to 4.30 percent in August from 4.20 percent in July of 2025. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Unemployment Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

In 2023, it was estimated that over 161 million Americans were in some form of employment, while 3.64 percent of the total workforce was unemployed. This was the lowest unemployment rate since the 1950s, although these figures are expected to rise in 2023 and beyond. 1980s-2010s Since the 1980s, the total United States labor force has generally risen as the population has grown, however, the annual average unemployment rate has fluctuated significantly, usually increasing in times of crisis, before falling more slowly during periods of recovery and economic stability. For example, unemployment peaked at 9.7 percent during the early 1980s recession, which was largely caused by the ripple effects of the Iranian Revolution on global oil prices and inflation. Other notable spikes came during the early 1990s; again, largely due to inflation caused by another oil shock, and during the early 2000s recession. The Great Recession then saw the U.S. unemployment rate soar to 9.6 percent, following the collapse of the U.S. housing market and its impact on the banking sector, and it was not until 2016 that unemployment returned to pre-recession levels. 2020s 2019 had marked a decade-long low in unemployment, before the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic saw the sharpest year-on-year increase in unemployment since the Great Depression, and the total number of workers fell by almost 10 million people. Despite the continuation of the pandemic in the years that followed, alongside the associated supply-chain issues and onset of the inflation crisis, unemployment reached just 3.67 percent in 2022 - current projections are for this figure to rise in 2023 and the years that follow, although these forecasts are subject to change if recent years are anything to go by.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - Black or African American (LNS14000006) from Jan 1972 to Aug 2025 about African-American, 16 years +, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

In May 2024, about 4.5 percent of recent college graduates were unemployed in the United States. This was a significant decrease from September 2020, when the unemployment rate among recent college graduates was at nine percent.

Number of job seekers in 2016 (Lorraine: 2014) Unemployment rate 2016 (in %, Lorraine: 2014) Territorial entities: Cantons (LOR, LUX), Kreise (RLP, SL), arrondissements (WAL) Statistical data sources: INSEE Grand Est, Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz, Statistisches Amt Saarland, STATEC, IWEPS. Calculations: LISER 2018 Geodata sources: ACT Luxembourg 2017, IGN France 2017, GeoBasis-DE / BKG 2017, NGI-Belgium 2017. Harmonization: SIG-GR / GIS-GR 2018

Youth Unemployment Rate in the United States increased to 10.50 percent in August from 10 percent in July of 2025. This dataset provides - United States Youth Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

In 2021, the unemployment rate among the United States workforce was approximately 5.35 percent - this was roughly 3.8 percent lower than the unemployment rate in 2020, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, but was still around one percent higher than pre-pandemic levels.

Percentage of unemployed according to SGB II and III among 15 to under 65 year olds on December 31, 2016 (MSS 2017, PLR, index indicator: status 1), map with group formation according to standard deviation from the mean

Employment and unemployment data by city for places in San Mateo County. CDP is "Census Designated Place" - a recognized community that was unincorporated at the time of the 2000 Census.

1) Data may not add due to rounding. All unemployment rates shown are calculated on unrounded data. 2) These data are not seasonally adjusted.

Methodology: Monthly city and CDP labor force data are derived by multiplying current estimates of county employment and unemployment by the employment and unemployment shares (ratios) of each city and CDP at the time of the 2000 Census. Ratios for cities of 25,000 or more persons were developed from special tabulations based on household population only from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For smaller cities and CDP, ratios were calculated from published census data.

City and CDP unrounded employment and unemployment are summed to get the labor force. The unemployment rate is calculated by dividing unemployment by the labor force. Then the labor force, employment, and unemployment are rounded.

This method assumes that the rates of change in employment and unemployment, since 2000, are exactly the same in each city and CDP as at the county level (i.e., that the shares are still accurate). If this assumption is not true for a specific city or CDP, then the estimates for that area may not represent the current economic conditions. Since this assumption is untested, caution should be employed when using these data.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - Women (LNS14000002) from Jan 1948 to Aug 2025 about females, 16 years +, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

This statistic presents the unemployment rate for individuals aged 15 to 24 years in Bhutan from 2005 to 2016. In 2016, approximately *** percent of the labor force aged 15 to 24 years in Bhutan were unemployed.

Unemployment rate, participation rate, and employment rate by educational attainment, gender and age group, annual.

Local area labor force information. Information by calendar year including labor force, employed, unemployed, and unemployment rate. Statewide and county statistics.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - Hispanic or Latino (LNS14000009) from Mar 1973 to Aug 2025 about latino, hispanic, 16 years +, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

Context

This is a dataset that I built by scraping the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was looking for county-level unemployment data and realized that there was a data source for this, but the data set itself hadn't existed yet, so I decided to write a scraper and build it out myself.

Content

This data represents the Local Area Unemployment Statistics from 1990-2016, broken down by state and month. The data itself is pulled from this mapping site:

https://data.bls.gov/map/MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u

Further, the ever-evolving and ever-improving codebase that pulled this data is available here:

https://github.com/jayrav13/bls_local_area_unemployment

Acknowledgements

Of course, a huge shoutout to bls.gov and their open and transparent data. I've certainly been inspired to dive into US-related data recently and having this data open further enables my curiosities.

Inspiration

I was excited about building this data set out because I was pretty sure something similar didn't exist - curious to see what folks can do with it once they run with it! A curious question I had was surrounding Unemployment vs 2016 Presidential Election outcome down to the county level. A comparison can probably lead to interesting questions and discoveries such as trends in local elections that led to their most recent election outcome, etc.

Next Steps

Version 1 of this is as a massive JSON blob, normalized by year / month / state. I intend to transform this into a CSV in the future as well.

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS OF THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN

The Department of Statistics (DOS) carried out four rounds of the 2016 Employment and Unemployment Survey (EUS). The survey rounds covered a sample of about fourty nine thousand households Nation-wide. The sampled households were selected using a stratified multi-stage cluster sampling design.

It is worthy to mention that the DOS employed new technology in data collection and data processing. Data was collected using electronic questionnaire instead of a hard copy, namely a hand held device (PDA).

The survey main objectives are: - To identify the demographic, social and economic characteristics of the population and manpower. - To identify the occupational structure and economic activity of the employed persons, as well as their employment status. - To identify the reasons behind the desire of the employed persons to search for a new or additional job. - To measure the economic activity participation rates (the number of economically active population divided by the population of 15+ years old). - To identify the different characteristics of the unemployed persons. - To measure unemployment rates (the number of unemployed persons divided by the number of economically active population of 15+ years old) according to the various characteristics of the unemployed, and the changes that might take place in this regard. - To identify the most important ways and means used by the unemployed persons to get a job, in addition to measuring durations of unemployment for such persons. - To identify the changes overtime that might take place regarding the above-mentioned variables.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing labor force surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a sample representative on the national level (Kingdom), governorates, and the three Regions (Central, North and South).

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered a national sample of households and all individuals permanently residing in surveyed households.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS OF THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Cleaning operations

----> Raw Data

A tabulation results plan has been set based on the previous Employment and Unemployment Surveys while the required programs were prepared and tested. When all prior data processing steps were completed, the actual survey results were tabulated using an ORACLE package. The tabulations were then thoroughly checked for consistency of data. The final report was then prepared, containing detailed tabulations as well as the methodology of the survey.

----> Harmonized Data

• The SPSS package is used to clean and harmonize the datasets.
• The harmonization process starts with a cleaning process for all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency.
• All cleaned data files are then merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization.
• A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/ compute/ recode/ rename/ format/ label harmonized variables.
• A post-harmonization cleaning process is then conducted on the data.
• Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and then converted to STATA, to be disseminated.

United States US: Unemployment Rate: % Change over Previous Period data was reported at -10.616 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of -8.031 % for 2016. United States US: Unemployment Rate: % Change over Previous Period data is updated yearly, averaging -5.513 % from Dec 1949 (Median) to 2017, with 69 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 89.744 % in 1954 and a record low of -37.402 % in 1951. United States US: Unemployment Rate: % Change over Previous Period data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by International Monetary Fund. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.IMF.IFS: Labour Force, Employment and Unemployment: Annual.

Unemployment Rate in China increased to 5.20 percent in July from 5 percent in June of 2025. This dataset provides - China Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

United States US: Unemployment Rate: % Change data was reported at -10.616 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of -8.031 % for 2016. United States US: Unemployment Rate: % Change data is updated yearly, averaging -5.513 % from Dec 1949 (Median) to 2017, with 69 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 89.744 % in 1954 and a record low of -37.402 % in 1951. United States US: Unemployment Rate: % Change data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by International Monetary Fund. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.IMF.IFS: Labour Force, Employment and Unemployment: Annual.