Falling Unemployment and Rising Employment

After peaking at 5.8% in 2002–2003, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate declined steadily to an average of 4.3% over the 12-month period ending in June 2007 (Figure 3).

While the unemployment rate has fallen, it is an imperfect indicator of labor market slack, because it does not count some “discouraged” workers who have stopped looking for work. To get a fuller picture of the job market, it is also valuable to examine the employment rate, defined as the percent of people who are employed. Employment rates since 2002–03 show the same steady improvement as do unemployment rates (Figure 4).

This page is an on-line summary of a portion of the full State of Working Pennsylvania 2006 report available for download from www.stateofworkingpa.org. © 2006 Keystone Research Center - www.keystoneresearch.org.