Unemployment Rate

After striking record lows in April, U.S. unemployment continued to drop in May. What Happened The Labor Department recorded a rate of just 3.8 percent against a 3.9-percent estimate. Nonfarm payrolls expanded 223,000, far exceeding a 189,000 forecast as well as last month’s addition...

With a reported 3.9-percent unemployment rate, April became one of six months in nearly 40 years when the figure fell below 4 percent. Before that, less than one-third of the months between 1948 and January 1970 saw lower or equivalent rates, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The...

The U.S. unemployment rate continued to decline throughout April to 4.4 percent against a 4.6-percent forecast and 4.5-percent March rate, according to a Friday employment report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economist Mohamed El-Erian said the lower rate could eventually manifest in higher...

President-elect Donald Trump may have made a large error in his first press conference following his election win on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters, Trump was asked a standard question on the economy. He answered that there "are 96 million [people] wanting a job and they can't get [one]. You...

Bloomberg's list of top-ranked economists offered their outlooks for 2017. Top-Ranked Analyst: Christophe Barraud Christophe Barraud, the chief economist at Market Securities, is Bloomberg's highest ranked overall economist. Barraud expects the U.S. economy to grow 2.5 percent to 3 percent in 2017...

The Labor Department's non-farm payrolls report rolled in on Friday to reveal happy tidings for the economy. The jobless rate plummeted to a nine-year low of 4.6 percent. The statistics sent people into a tizzy, ratcheting up expectations for a Fed rate hike as early as December. When a 0.3-...

A survey conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University found that 57 percent of the public is under the impression that the economy is a lot worse than it is. For instance, the unemployment rate stands at 4.9 percent, but almost 30 percent of those...

The Wall Street Journal has a list of five key items market participants should be looking out for when the Labor Department releases its August jobs report on Friday. 1. Hiring Pace Back in July, employers added 255,000 jobs which marked a decrease from the 292,000 jobs created in June....

As August comes to a close, investor attention will now focus on Friday's monthly job report — and for good reason. Mohamed El-Erian wrote in an op-ed published on Bloomberg whether the coming jobs report could influence the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates. The economist...

In a report published Friday, Bank of America analyst Ethan Harris explored the "what's next" scenario, as the Federal Reserve's September rate hike isn't completely out of the question. Harris may have been the first to coin the term "Fedophobia" back at the end of July when he noted that the...

Want an edge on volatility? Try this. Get real-time, award-winning market intelligence from a Macro Insider. While the financial press is making much of the Federal Reserve’s “dilemma” over whether, and when, to raise interest rates this year, it still seems pretty clear...

Greg Harmon is the CIO and partner at Presidium Capital. He said that the U.S. unemployment data that will be released Friday will have a lot to do with what happens in markets this week. In short, not much noise. Harmon has more than 25 years of experience trading, and on Monday he joined...

U.S. stocks picked up where they left off after Thursday's sharp sell-off as positive earnings reports yet again took a backstage to geo-political uncertainties. Not helping the bull cause was nonfarm payrolls, rising by 209,000, less than the 233,000 expected. The jobless rate also ticked...

U.S. stocks rose as investors and traders digested comments from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Open Committee announced that it will further taper its asset purchases by another $10 billion. The Fed is now committing towards purchasing $35 billion of assets per month. The Fed also...