January 09, 2007 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Unemployment and labor force participation at the end of 2006

In December 2006, the number of unemployed persons was 6.8 million and the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. Over the year, these measures declined from 7.3 million and 4.9 percent, respectively.

Unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, January 2004-December 2006
[Chart data—TXT]

From December 2005 to December 2006, the labor force grew by 2.7 million to 152.8 million and the labor force participation rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 66.4 percent.

The employment-population ratio in December 2006, at 63.4 percent, was 0.6 percentage point higher than a year earlier.

The data in this report are from the Current Population Survey and are seasonally adjusted. For more information, see "The Employment Situation: December 2006" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 07-0003.

 

Related TED article:

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

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