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December 1984, Vol. 107, No.
12
Work experience in 1983
reflects the effects of the recovery
Reflecting the strong rebound of the economy, 1.4 million more persons held jobs in 1983 than in 1982. And the number working year round full time expanded even more—by nearly 3 million. In addition, there was a drop of 2.7 million in the number of persons experiencing some unemployment during the year.
These data come from responses to "work experience" questions asked in March 1984 in a supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS).1 The questions, which are asked annually, refer to the work status of the civilian population over the previous calendar year.
Because many persons change their labor force status during a year, the total number with some employment or unemployment as measured in this survey usually is much higher than the annual averages based on the monthly CPS.
For 1983, the number of persons who worked all or part of the year—117.7 million—was 17 percent higher than the annual average civilian employment level of 100.8 million. And the number of persons who encountered some unemployment (although lower than the previous year) was still more than twice the annual average of the monthly unemployment figures (23.8 million versus 10.7 million). Altogether, 19.6 percent of all persons with some labor force activity during the year, in terms of having either worked or looked for work, experienced some unemployment in 1983. By comparison, the annual average unemployment rate for 1983 was 9.6 percent.
This excerpt is from an article published in the December 1984 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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1 This is the latest in a series of reports on this subject. For an analysis of data from the March 1983 Current Population Survey, see Paul O. Flaim, "Unemployment in 1982: the cost to workers and their families," Monthly Labor Review, February 1984, pp. 30-37, reprinted as Special Labor Force Report Bulletin 2199.
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