The unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent in April, the lowest it has been since the early 2000s — near the end of both President Bill Clinton’s second term and the dot-com boom. But wages back then were rising at a faster pace, while they’ve been pretty flat in today’s job market. Why? What are […]

President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs will take effect in two weeks. But it will probably be months before there’s any evidence of how the tariffs will impact the job market. Click the audio player above to hear the full story. 

A big date on the economic calendar this week: the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meeting Dec. 12 and 13. We’ll find out Wednesday whether it’s raising short-term interest rates again. An important piece of the economic puzzle landed on today with the November jobs report. It showed unemployment at a low 4.1 percent and […]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts together the monthly jobs report from two separate surveys that track the job market differently. The Establishment or Payroll Survey counts jobs and wages as reported by 147,000 sample employers. The Household Survey counts people who are employed, unemployed or not in the labor force as reported in phone questionnaires […]

The headline unemployment rate we report every month from the Labor Department has been consistently low. According to economists we’re at or near what’s considered full employment.Employers have a record number of job openings, about 6 million right now, and say they can’t find workers to fill them, especially in fields like manufacturing and construction. […]