Labor Market Dashboard
Unemployment and U-6 underemployment, nonfarm payrolls, job openings, labor force participation, average hourly earnings, and jobless claims — the key indicators of labor market health.
About this data
BLS employment data sits upstream of nearly every federal fiscal metric. Payroll-tax receipts — the single largest source of federal revenue after individual income tax — are a direct function of how many people are working and how much they earn. When nonfarm payrolls contract, Social Security and Medicare tax collections contract with them, automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance fire, and the deficit widens without any policy change.
This dashboard pulls monthly unemployment and U-6 underemployment, nonfarm payrolls, job openings, labor force participation, average hourly earnings, and weekly initial and continuing jobless claims from the Bureau of Labor Statistics through the FRED data pipeline. The relationship between labor slack and fiscal balance is not symmetric: full employment produces record receipts but doesn't automatically produce surpluses, because outlays continue to grow with demographics and discretionary appropriations. Reading the labor series alongside the receipts and interest-expense dashboards gives a more complete picture of whether strong jobs numbers are translating into fiscal improvement or merely masking structural imbalance.
Labor market — headline figures
Unemployment Rate
Nonfarm Payrolls
Initial Unemployment Claims
Job Openings (JOLTS)
U-6 Underemployment Rate
Average Hourly Earnings, Year over Year
Labor Force Participation Rate
Continued Unemployment Claims
Series Tracked in This Dashboard
Recent Monthly Labor-Market Indicators
| Month | Unemployment | NFP change | LFPR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2026 | 4.2% | +29K | 61.8% |
| Aug 2026 | 4.1% | +133K | 61.6% |
| Jul 2026 | 4.1% | -10K | 61.4% |
| Jun 2026 | 4.2% | +31K | 61.5% |
| May 2026 | 4.3% | +63K | 61.8% |
| Apr 2026 | 4.3% | +148K | 61.8% |
| Mar 2026 | 4.3% | +214K | 61.9% |
| Feb 2026 | 4.4% | -156K | 62.0% |
| Jan 2026 | 4.3% | +160K | 62.1% |
| Dec 2025 | 4.4% | -17K | 62.4% |
| Nov 2025 | 4.5% | +41K | 62.5% |
| Sep 2025 | 4.4% | +76K | 62.5% |
Key Terms
Frequently asked questions
What is the current US unemployment rate?
The U.S. unemployment rate (the U-3 measure) is published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Employment Situation report. It counts people who are jobless, available for work, and have actively searched in the past four weeks, expressed as a share of the civilian labor force. Recent readings have run in the 3.5–4.5% range.
What's the difference between U-3 and U-6 unemployment?
U-3 is the headline rate — jobless people actively looking for work as a share of the civilian labor force. U-6 adds two groups: people working part-time because they can't find full-time work, and workers marginally attached to the labor force (they want a job but haven't searched in the last four weeks). U-6 typically runs 3–5 percentage points above U-3.
What are nonfarm payrolls (NFP) and when are they released?
Nonfarm payrolls count the number of paid U.S. workers excluding farm employees, private-household workers, and nonprofit employees. BLS publishes the monthly change in NFP on the first Friday of each month at 8:30 a.m. ET, alongside the unemployment rate. It's one of the most market-moving economic releases.
What does the labor force participation rate mean?
The labor force participation rate (LFPR) is the share of the working-age civilian population that is either employed or actively looking for work. It's the denominator behind the unemployment rate — a falling LFPR can make unemployment look lower without any actual improvement in jobs. U.S. LFPR peaked at 67.3% in 2000 and has drifted down since, driven largely by population aging.
What are initial jobless claims?
Initial claims are the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance for the first time in a given week. The Department of Labor publishes the figure every Thursday, making it the highest-frequency labor-market indicator and the earliest signal of rising or falling layoffs.
What do job openings (JOLTS) tell us about the labor market?
Job openings, from the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), count unfilled positions on the last business day of each month. Comparing openings with the number of unemployed people shows how tight the market is: many openings per jobseeker means employers are competing for workers and wages tend to rise, while falling openings signal cooling demand for labor. Openings peaked near 12 million in March 2022.
How are continued claims different from initial claims?
Initial claims count people filing for unemployment insurance for the first time in a week, so they signal new layoffs. Continued claims count people who have already filed and are still receiving benefits, so they reflect how long jobless spells last. Rising continued claims with steady initial claims suggest hiring is slowing. The Department of Labor publishes both weekly, with continued claims lagging by one week.
What are average hourly earnings and why do they matter?
Average hourly earnings is the BLS measure of what private-sector workers earn per hour, published monthly in the Employment Situation report. The year-over-year change is the most watched wage-growth gauge. Wage growth above inflation raises purchasing power, and faster wage growth also lifts federal income and payroll tax receipts.