Finance glossary
Unemployment Rate
Definition
The percentage of the labor force that is jobless and seeking work.
The unemployment rate measures the share of people actively looking for work but unable to find it, relative to the total labor force. It is a key lagging indicator of economic health. It excludes discouraged workers who have stopped searching, which can understate true joblessness.
In a sentence
The unemployment rate ticked up to 5% as companies slowed their hiring.
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