The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates six alternative measures of unemployment, U1 through U6. They differ in the duration of unemployment and some other aspects. Nevertheless, there is no data of the duration, so only U6 can be calculated.
Unemployment rate can be calculated by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force" \o "Labor force" labor force . Labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed. It can be written in the following formula:
Now we have to classify each category from the data into three parts – employed, unemployed and not in labor force.
Working full-time paid employment: 70 million – employed.
Volunteer work: 10 million – volunteers do not get labor force money compensation and are not considered to be in a labor force.
Want a job (paid employment) and are actively seeking a job: 15 million – unemployed, because they are actively seeking a job.
Want a job (paid employment) and will take a job if offered a job but are not actively seeking a job: 5 million – not in labor force, because are not seeking a job.
Working part-time paid employment and satisfied with a part-time job: 5 million – employed. Part-time job is still the job.
Working part-time paid employment but not satisfied with a part-time job and still seeking a full time job: 30 million – employed, because they are working.
Now we can calculate the unemployment rate easily:
= 15/120= 0,125= 12, …