In 2023, the broadest measure of labor underutilization, designated U-6 (which includes the unemployed, workers employed part-time for economic reasons, and those marginally attached to the labor force), was 5.3 percent in Virginia, significantly lower than the 6.9-percent rate for the nation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Alexandra Hall Bovee noted that the six alternative measures of labor underutilization in Virginia were significantly lower than the national rates. In Virginia and nationally, none of the measures significantly differed from the previous year.The official concept of unemployment, U-3 in the U-1 to U-6 range of measures, includes all jobless persons who are available to take a job and have actively sought work in the past 4 weeks. In 2023, 13 states had rates significantly lower than those of the U.S. for all six measures of labor underutilization, while 4 states and the District of Columbia had rates higher than those of the U.S. for all six measures. The U-4 rate includes discouraged workers; thus, the difference between U-3 and U-4 reflects the degree of would-be job-seeker discouragement. At the national level, the difference between U-3 and U-4 was +0.3 percentage point in 2023. No state had a noteworthy difference between these two measures.

The U-5 rate includes all people who are marginally attached to the labor force, and U-6 adds those who are involuntary part-time workers. Therefore, the larger the difference between U-5 and U-6, the higher the incidence of this form of "underemployment." In 2023, 47 states and the District of Columbia had significant differences between their U-5 and U-6 rates. California had the largest gap (+3.5 percentage points), followed by Oregon (+3.3 points) and Washington (+3.0 points). At the national level, the difference between U-5 and U-6 was +2.4 percentage points.

Relative to 2022, Pennsylvania was the only state to experience significant decreases in all 6 measures of labor underutilization, while Mississippi had decreases in 5 of the 6 measures. For each measure, rates declined over the year for at least three states (U-2 and U-6) and as many as seven states (U-4). Only California experienced over-the-year increases in all 6 measures, while New Jersey had increases in 5 of the 6 measures. Three additional states had increases in one measure (U-1 for Indiana and Texas and U-5 for Idaho). At the national level, rates were unchanged over the year for all six measures.

During the nineteenth century, U.S. manufacturers shifted away from the “hand labor” mode of production, characteristic of artisan shops, to “machine labor,” which was increasingly concentrated in steam-powered factories. This transition fundamentally changed production tasks, jobs, and job requirements. This paper uses digitized data on these two production modes from an 1899 U.S. Commissioner of Labor report to estimate the frequency and impact of the use of inanimate power on production operation times. About half of production operations were mechanized; the use of inanimate power raised productivity, accounting for about one-quarter to one-third of the overall productivity advantage of machine labor. However, additional factors, such as the increased division of labor and adoption of high-volume production, also played quantitatively important roles in raising productivity in machine production versus by hand.