Explanatory Notes and Estimates of Error - United States Bureau of Labor Statistics report - Statistical Data Included

Employment and Earnings, June, 1999

Labor force. This group comprises all persons classified as employed or unemployed in accordance with the criteria described above.

Unemployment rate, The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Participation rate. This represents the proportion of the population that is in the labor force.

Employment-population ratio. This represents the proportion of the population that is employed.

Not in the labor force. Included in this group are all persons in the civilian noninstitutional population who are neither employed nor unemployed. Information is collected on their desire for and availability to take a job at the time of the CPS interview, job search activity in the prior year, and reason for not looking in the 4-week period prior to the survey week. This group includes discouraged workers, defined as persons not in the labor force who want and are available for a job and who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but are not currently looking, because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they would qualify.

Persons classified as not in the labor force who are in the sample for either their fourth or eighth month are asked additional questions relating to job history and workseeking intentions. These latter data are available on a quarterly basis.

Occupation, industry, and class of worker. This information for the employed applies to the job held in the reference week. Persons with two or more jobs are classified in the job at which they worked the greatest number of hours. The unemployed are classified according to their last job. The occupational and industrial classification of CPS data is based on the coding systems used in the 1990 census.

The class-of-worker breakdown assigns workers to the following categories: Private and government wage and salary workers, self-employed workers, and unpaid family workers. Wage and salary workers receive wages, salary, commissions, tips, or pay in kind from a private employer or from a government unit. Self-employed persons are those who work for profit or fees in their own business, profession, trade, or farm. Only the unincorporated self-employed are included in the self-employed category in the class of worker typology. Self-employed persons who respond that their businesses are incorporated are included among wage and salary workers, because technically, they are paid employees of a corporation. Unpaid family workers are persons working without pay for 15 hours a week or more on a farm or in a business operated by a member of the household to whom they are related by birth or marriage.

Multiple jobholders. These are employed persons who, during the reference week, had either two or more jobs as a wage and salary worker, were self-employed and also held a wage and salary job, or worked as an unpaid family worker and also held a wage and salary job. Excluded are self-employed persons with multiple businesses and persons with multiple jobs as unpaid family workers.