Introduction to the Unemployment Rate

What you’ll learn to do: describe and calculate unemployment

This image is a photograph of a “Going Out of Business” signs for Borders. The signs denote that even the fixtures are for sale.

Figure 1. Out of Business. Borders was one of the many companies unable to recover from the economic recession of 2008-2009. (Credit: modification of work by Luis Villa del Campo/Flickr Creative Commons)

In this section, we’ll examine unemployment. First, we’ll take a look at what it is, how it it measured, and general trends over time.