In December 2024, Nevada had the highest unemployment rate in the United States, with an unemployment rate of 5.7. The unemployment rate was also high in the District of Columbia, with an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent in December. Unemployment in the U.S. A person is considered unemployed if they have no job and are currently looking for a job and available to work. The unemployment rate in the United States varies across states. Nation-wide unemployment was 3.4 percent as of April 2023. Unemployment can be affected by various factors including economic conditions and global competition. During economic prosperity, unemployment rates generally decrease and during times of recession, rates increase. The seasons can also have an impact on the unemployment rate, especially during winter, when there is lower demand for construction workers or other professionals who typically work outdoors. The retail sector also experiences fluctuating demand for workers, particularly during the holiday-shopping season, when demand for workers increases. For this reason, labor statistics are usually presented as being either seasonally adjusted or unadjusted. The data presented in this statistic have been seasonally adjusted, but the monthly unadjusted unemployment rate can be accessed here.

Unemployment Rate in the United States decreased to 4.10 percent in June from 4.20 percent in May 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 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.

In April 2025, the agriculture and related private wage and salary workers industry had the highest unemployment rate in the United States, at eight percent. In comparison, government workers had the lowest unemployment rate, at 1.8 percent. The average for all industries was 3.9 percent. U.S. unemployment There are several factors that impact unemployment, as it fluctuates with the state of the economy. Unfortunately, the forecasted unemployment rate in the United States is expected to increase as we head into the latter half of the decade. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher saw the lowest unemployment rate from 1992 to 2022 in the United States, which is attributed to the fact that higher levels of education are seen as more desirable in the workforce. Nevada unemployment Nevada is one of the states with the highest unemployment rates in the country and Vermont typically has one of the lowest unemployment rates. These are seasonally adjusted rates, which means that seasonal factors such as holiday periods and weather events that influence employment periods are removed. Nevada's economy consists of industries that are currently suffering high unemployment rates such as tourism. As of May 2023, about 5.4 percent of Nevada's population was unemployed, possibly due to the lingering impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

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

Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Data - 2020 year to dateThis map contain Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims data, from the United State Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration, starting on 01/01/2020 and updated weekly. These data are used in current economic analysis of unemployment trends in the nation, and in each state. Initial claims is a measure of emerging unemployment. It counts the number of new persons claiming unemployment benefits and it is released after one week.Continued claims is a measure of the total number of persons claiming unemployment benefits, and it is released one week later than the initial claims.The data is organized by state, with the following attributes (as defined by the United State Department of Labor) repeated for each weekWeek/date when claims were filedNumber of initial claimsWeek/date reflected in the data weekNumber of continued claims Total covered employment Insured unemployment rateThe latest information on unemployment insurance claims can be found here.TECHNICAL NOTESThese data represent the weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims reported by each state's unemployment insurance program offices. These claims may be used for monitoring workload volume, assessing state program operations and for assessing labor market conditions. States initially report claims directly taken by the state liable for the benefit payments, regardless of where the claimant who filed the claim resided. These are the basis for the advance initial claims and continued claims reported each week. These data come from ETA 538, Advance Weekly Initial and Continued Claims Report. The following week initial claims and continued claims are revised based on a second reporting by states that reflect the claimants by state of residence. These data come from the ETA 539, Weekly Claims and Extended Benefits Trigger Data Report.A. Initial ClaimsAn initial claim is a claim filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer. The claimant requests a determination of basic eligibility for the UI program. When an initial claim is filed with a state, certain programmatic activities take place and these result in activity counts including the count of initial claims. The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it is an indication of emerging labor market conditions in the country. However, these are weekly administrative data which are difficult to seasonally adjust, making the series subject to some volatility.B. Continued Weeks ClaimedA person who has already filed an initial claim and who has experienced a week of unemployment then files a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment. Continued claims are also referred to as insured unemployment. The count of U.S. continued weeks claimed is also a good indicator of labor market conditions. Continued claims reflect the current number of insured unemployed workers filing for UI benefits in the nation. While continued claims are not a leading indicator (they roughly coincide with economic cycles at their peaks and lag at cycle troughs), they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the U.S. economyC. Seasonal Adjustments and Annual RevisionsOver the course of a year, the weekly changes in the levels of initial claims and continued claims undergo regularly occurring fluctuations. These fluctuations may result from seasonal changes in weather, major holidays, the opening and closing of schools, or other similar events. Because these seasonal events follow a more or less regular pattern each year, their influence on the level of a series can be tempered by adjusting for regular seasonal variation. These adjustments make trend and cycle developments easier to spot. At the beginning of each calendar year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) with a set of seasonal factors to apply to the unadjusted data during that year. Concurrent with the implementation and release of the new seasonal factors, ETA incorporates revisions to the UI claims historical series caused by updates to the unadjusted data.

Initial Jobless Claims in the United States decreased to 227 thousand in the week ending July 5 of 2025 from 232 thousand in the previous week. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Initial Jobless Claims - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Graph and download economic data for Unemployment Rate - 20 Yrs. & over (LNS14000024) from Jan 1948 to Jun 2025 about 20 years +, household survey, unemployment, rate, and USA.

The seasonally-adjusted national unemployment rate is measured on a monthly basis in the United States. In February 2025, the national unemployment rate was at 4.1 percent. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical method of removing the seasonal component of a time series that is used when analyzing non-seasonal trends. U.S. monthly unemployment rate According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics - the principle fact-finding agency for the U.S. Federal Government in labor economics and statistics - unemployment decreased dramatically between 2010 and 2019. This trend of decreasing unemployment followed after a high in 2010 resulting from the 2008 financial crisis. However, after a smaller financial crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment reached 8.1 percent in 2020. As the economy recovered, the unemployment rate fell to 5.3 in 2021, and fell even further in 2022. Additional statistics from the BLS paint an interesting picture of unemployment in the United States. In November 2023, the states with the highest (seasonally adjusted) unemployment rate were the Nevada and the District of Columbia. Unemployment was the lowest in Maryland, at 1.8 percent. Workers in the agricultural and related industries suffered the highest unemployment rate of any industry at seven percent in December 2023.

In February 2025, the unemployment rate for those aged 16 and over in the United States came to 4.5 percent. Service occupations had an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent in that month. The underemployment rate of the country can be accessed here and the monthly unemployment rate here. Unemployment by occupation in the U.S. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics publish data on the unemployment situation within certain occupations in the United States on a monthly basis. According to latest data released from May 2023, transportation and material moving occupations experienced the highest level of unemployment that month, with a rate of around 5.6 percent. Second ranked was farming, fishing, and forestry occupations with a rate of 4.9 percent. Total (not seasonally adjusted) unemployment was reported at 3.6 percent in March 2023. Other data on the U.S. unemployment rate by industry and class of worker shows comparable results. It should be noted that the data were not seasonally adjusted to account for normal seasonal fluctuations in unemployment. The monthly unemployment by occupation data can be compared to the seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rate. In March 2023, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, which was an increase from the previous month. The annual unemployment rate in 2022 was 3.6 percent, down from a high of 9.6 in 2010. Unemployment in the United States trended downward after the coronavirus pandemic, and is now experiencing consistently low rates - a sign of economic stability. Individuals who opt to leave the workforce and stop looking for employment are not included among the unemployed. The civilian labor force participation rate in the U.S. rose to 62.2 percent in 2022, down from 67.1 percent in 2000, before the financial crisis.

U6 Unemployment Rate in the United States decreased to 7.70 percent in June from 7.80 percent in May of 2025. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United States U-6 Unemployment Rate.

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.

This dataset provides values for UNEMPLOYMENT RATE reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

Continued Claims for UI released by the CT Department of Labor. Continued Claims are total number of individuals being paid benefits in any particular week. Claims data can be access directly from CT DOL here: https://www1.ctdol.state.ct.us/lmi/claimsdata.asp

Claims are disaggregated by age, education, industry, race/national origin, sex, and wages.

The claim counts in this dataset may not match claim counts from other sources.

Unemployment claims tabulated in this dataset represent only one component of the unemployed. Claims do not account for those not covered under the Unemployment system (e.g. federal workers, railroad workers or religious workers) or the unemployed self-employed.

Claims filed for a particular week will change as time goes on and the backlog is addressed.

For data on continued claims at the town level, see the dataset "Continued Claims for Unemployment Benefits by Town" here: https://data.ct.gov/Government/Continued-Claims-for-Unemployment-Benefits-by-Town/r83t-9bjm

For data on initial claims see the following two datasets:

"Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits in Connecticut," https://data.ct.gov/Government/Initial-Claims-for-Unemployment-Benefits/j3yj-ek9y

"Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits by Town," https://data.ct.gov/Government/Initial-Claims-for-Unemployment-Benefits-by-Town/twvc-s7wy

The average for 2025 based on 101 countries was 6.64 percent. The highest value was in Sudan: 61.99 percent and the lowest value was in Thailand: 1 percent. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2030. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Regional unemployment rates used by the Employment Insurance program, by effective date, current month.

Graph and download economic data for Initial Claims (ICSA) from 1967-01-07 to 2025-07-05 about initial claims, headline figure, and USA.

The statistic reflects the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in member states of the European Union in November 2024. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Spain in November 2024 was 11.2 percent.The unemployment rate represents the share of the unemployed in all potential employees available to the job market. Unemployment rates in the EU The unemployment rate is an important measure of a country or region’s economic health, and despite unemployment levels in the European Union falling slightly from a peak in early 2013 , they remain high, especially in comparison to what the rates were before the worldwide recession started in 2008. This confirms the continuing stagnation in European markets, which hits young job seekers particularly hard as they struggle to compete against older, more experienced workers for a job, suffering under jobless rates twice as high as general unemployment. Some companies, such as Microsoft and Fujitsu, have created thousands of jobs in some of the countries which have particularly dire unemployment rates, creating a beacon of hope. However, some industries such as information technology, face the conundrum of a deficit of qualified workers in the local unemployed work force, and have to hire workers from abroad instead of helping decrease the local unemployment rates. This skills mismatch has no quick solution, as workers require time for retraining to fill the openings in the growing science-, technology-, or engineering-based jobs, and too few students choose degrees that would help them obtain these positions. Worldwide unemployment also remains high, with the rates being worst in the Middle East and North Africa. Estimates by the International Labour Organization predict that the problem will stabilize in coming years, but not improve until at least 2017.

Unemployment Rate in Germany remained unchanged at 6.30 percent in June. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Germany Unemployment Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.