美国失业率怎么下降

美国失业率怎么下降

发表日期：2011-12-11 来源：沃尔得国际英语点击：11

The U.S. added 120,000 jobs in November, but the unemployment rate posted a huge drop to 8.6% from 9% and a broader unemployment rate fell even more to 15.6% from 16.2%. Why?

The number of jobs added comes from a survey of establishment payrolls. The unemployment rate comes from a separate survey of U.S. households. The household survey is much smaller than the establishment survey, and as a result it can swing around a lot 岸and move the unemployment rate up and down when it does. That volatility is a big reason why economists usually, but not always, pay much more attention to the establishment report.

The unemployment rate is calculated based on people who are without jobs, who are available to work and who have actively sought work in the prior four weeks. The ※actively looking for work§ definition is fairly broad, including people who contacted an employer, employment agency, job center or friends; sent out resumes or filled out applications; or answered or placed ads, among other things. The rate is calculated by dividing that number by the total number of people in the labor force.

In October, the household survey showed the number of people unemployed fell by 594,000, but the labor force 岸the number of people working or looking for work 岸fell by a little more than half that amount. That means that though the number of employed people rose, a large group just stopped looking for work. That could be due to discouragement of the long-term unemployed or by choice over retirement or child care. So the decline in the unemployment rate to 8.6% was about half due to people finding jobs and half people dropping out.

Meanwhile, the broader unemployment rate, known as the ※U-6∪for its data classification by the Labor Department, dropped by a 0.6 percentage point last month. The U-6 figure includes everyone in the official rate plus ※marginally attached workers§岸those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that＊s all they could find.

The key to the drop in the broader unemployment rate was due to a 378,000 drop in the number of people employed part time but who would prefer full-time work, that comes on top of a big drop in that category last month. That number could reflect people having their hours increased or part-time workers moving on to full time work.

美国11月新增了12万个工作岗位，但失业率却从9%大幅回落至8.6%，而一项更广泛的失业率指标甚至从16.2%降至15.6%。原因何在？