Monitoring the labor market is critical for understanding the state of the economy. Building on The Hamilton Project’s prior work documenting and explaining various aspects of the labor market, the data interactive “Tracking the labor market and jobs” allows users to explore these trends. Users can track labor force participation, employment, and unemployment among other indicators by demographic groups: sex, age, race/ethnicity, nativity, education, age of youngest child, and disability status, with and without seasonal adjustment for select series about workers. Users can also track measures of job demand, separations, and labor market tightness by industry, state, and firm size.
This tool will update twice monthly with the releases of the Current Population Survey (CPS) microdata to IPUMS (these data are harmonized over time and are released mid-month) and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (first week of the month).
Step 1: Select labor market indicator
Upon the initial loading of the page, users will see one open panel titled “Worker and labor market indicators” (CPS) and one closed panel titled “Firm and job indicators” (JOLTS). Users can toggle between each panel to view separately or simultaneously.
Step 2: Select labor market indicator
At the top of each panel, users first select one labor market indicator:
Worker and labor market indicators:
- Labor force participation
- Employment metrics: employment-population ratio; part-time for economic reasons; part-time
- Unemployment metrics: unemployment rate; U-5 rate; long-term unemployment rate
Firm and job indicators:
- Job demand: hires rate and job openings rate
- Separations: layoffs and discharges rate; quits rate; total separations rate
- Market tightness: job openings to unemployment ratio; hires to job openings ratio
We use BLS definitions for the labor market indicators; more information on definitions can be found here for CPS indicators and here for JOLTS indicators.
Labor force participation
- Labor force participation rate: The number of people in the labor force—employed or actively seeking work, i.e. unemployed—as a share of the population.
Employment
- Employment-population ratio: The number of people who are employed as a share of the population.
- Part-time: The number of people who usually work between 1 and 34 hours per week as a share of the employed population.
- Part-time for economic reasons: The number of people who are involuntarily working part-time as a percentage of the employed population.
- To be classified as working involuntarily part-time requires someone to be available and willing to work full-time but working part-time because of slack work; unfavorable business conditions; inability to find full-time work; or seasonal declines in demand.
Unemployment
- Unemployment rate: The number of people who are unemployed as a share of the labor force.
- U-5 rate: The number of people who are unemployed or marginally attached to the workforce as a share of the labor force plus the number of people who are marginally attached to the workforce.
- Long-term unemployment rate: The number of people who have been unemployed for 27 consecutive weeks or more as a share of the labor force.
Job demand
- Job openings rate: The number of positions—which could start within 30 days and for which an employer is actively recruiting from outside of the establishment—open on the last business day of the reference month, as a share of total employment.
- Hires rate: The number of all additions to the payroll during the reference month as a share of total employment.
Separations
- Quits rate: The number of employees who left voluntarily at any point during the reference month as a share of total employment.
- Layoffs and discharges rate: The number of involuntary separations initiated by the employer as a share of total employment.
- Total separations rate: The number of total separations—the sum of quits, layoffs, and other separations—as a share of total employment.
Market tightness
- Job openings to unemployment ratio: The ratio of the job openings rate to the unemployment rate.
- Hires to openings ratio: The ratio of the hires rate to the job openings rate.
Step 3: Select disaggregation level
Worker and labor market indicators: Sex, age, and other demographics
If no demographics are selected, users will see the employment statistics for the prime-age non-institutionalized civilian population.
Users can select to view employment indicators for sex (“male,” “female,” and “all”). Users may select one age group among all individuals 16+, ages 16–24 (youth), 25–54 (prime-age), 55–64, 18–64, and 65+. Youth and prime-age can be further separated out into 16–19, 19–24, 25–34, 35–44, and 45–54.
After selecting sex and age, users can select up to two additional demographic characteristics:
- Race and ethnicity: Black, Hispanic, white, or other
- Age of youngest child: under 5, 5–12, 13–18, or no minor child
- Educational attainment: high school degree or less, some college, or bachelor’s or higher
- Nativity status: native-born or foreign-born
- Disability status: does not have a disability or has a disability
Once selected, the data interactive will show a secondary menu below the chart that allows users to select or unselect which series to display. The screenshot below shows “Age of youngest child” as an example.
After selecting sex and age, selecting two demographic characteristics produces cross-tabulated statistics for the series of those demographics among the age-sex group. The order in which a user selects the two demographic characteristics determines the structure of the secondary menu. For example, selecting “Age of youngest child” and “Nativity status” will nest the series selectors for “Nativity status” within each level of “Age of youngest child.”
Flipping the order of the same indicators will nest the series of “Age of youngest child” within the levels of “Nativity status.” In addition to the real series (e.g. “Under 5,” “5–12,” etc.), users can select “All” for the second demographic to see aggregates by the first demographic. The screenshot below compares the labor force participation rate of all native-born women and native-born women with a child under 5 years old to their foreign-born counterparts.
Firm and job indicators: Industry, state, and firm size
Users can choose to disaggregate topline JOLTS statistics by industry, state, and firm size. The availability of different states and firm sizes depends on the selected statistics and industry. For example, all states are available for total non-farm, but not total private; and all firm sizes are available for total private but not total non-farm. The state and firm size dropdowns update automatically after statistic and industry selections. Selecting a new industry or statistic may reset the state and firm size dropdowns to available selections.
Given the availability of state and industry subcategories, users may select multiple categories for cross-industry, cross-state comparisons.
Step 3: Adjust and export figures and data
Users can further customize the display of the selected labor market indicator by adjusting the time range (changing the start date) or, for CPS data, selecting seasonal adjustment or a 12-month moving average to smooth series. All JOLTS data in this tracker is seasonally adjusted. For CPS data, solid lines represent the smoothed series, and dotted lines represent the underlying monthly data, which will always be displayed. Seasonal adjustment is performed using the Census Bureau’s X-13 ARIMA model and is available for the prime-age sex-age groups as wholes or when disaggregated by only one additional demographic. Users may not select both seasonal adjustment and the moving average.
Users can export the data or image with the download buttons at the bottom of each panel’s main display. Data exports are limited to the currently filtered series. The reset button on each panel will reset all selections to the default: prime-age labor force participation for “Worker and labor market indicators,” and the national total non-farm hires rate for “Firm and job indicators.”
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