Job market

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. […]