What is the percentage of the labour force actively seeking work but currently without a job?

• A. Unemployment rate
• B. Labour force participation rate (LFPR)
• C. Underemployment rate
• D. Job vacancy rate

Answer: (A)

The unemployment rate measures the percentage of people in the labor force who are without work but actively seeking it. The labor force includes those who are employed plus those who are unemployed and actively looking for a job. So it is calculated as (unemployed ÷ labor force) × 100. This question is asking for the share of the labor force that is actively seeking work yet not employed, which matches that definition exactly.

For context, other rates describe different things: the labour force participation rate is the share of the entire population that is in the labor force, not the share of the labor force that is unemployed; the underemployment rate covers people working fewer hours than they’d like or in jobs below their skill level; and the job vacancy rate relates to open positions relative to overall labor demand. For example, if 5 million are unemployed out of a 60 million labor force, the unemployment rate would be 8.3%.