The “official” rate only counts unemployed people who have looked in the last four weeks. Five other rates track other kinds of unemployment.

One reason for all the part-time work is the instability in the broader economy, one expert says.

The two groups, which existed for decades, gave expert advice to federal data scientists and played a role in government transparency.

“If we think about the ways that companies collect data, it ranges so widely from different company,” said George Washington University’s Tara Sinclair. “That’s why it’s so important that we have government statistical agencies.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the most growth in health care and technology occupations over the next 10 years. But the projections aren’t iron-clad.

Schedule F would expand the role of political appointees in the government. So what would that mean for federal economic data?

BLS survey data showed that in 2023, 35% of employed people did some or all of their work at home.

Owners’ equivalent rent measures the market cost of living in a home — which is a bit different from how much we actually spend on housing.

The survey of employers was created to help answer puzzling questions about labor.

The WSJ’s Lauren Weber talks about “how we sort ourselves into different occupations and how in some ways we are sorted.”