The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released their State Employment and Unemployment Summary for March of 2023.
In March, unemployment rates were lower in February in 18 states, higher in the District of Columbia, and stable in 32 states. Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 2 states and was essentially unchanged in 48 states and the District of Columbia.
The current unemployment rate for Mississippi (as of March 2023) stands at 3.5 percent.
For comparison, the unemployment rate for the previous reported month (February 2023) was reported as 3.7 percent.
Mississippi stands at a 0.3 percent decrease from the same point the previous year (March, 2022).
Mississippi's unemployment rate at the beginning of the previous year was 4.1 percent (in January, 2022).
The national unemployment rate currently stands at 3.5 percent, which has fallen 0.1 percent from February 2023 (last month's report).
The formula the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses is pretty simple: Unemployed divided by those employed, plus those unemployed equals the unemployment rate.
Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts a survey in which they ask Americans various questions about their habits. Based on responses, the BLS places them in one of three categories: employed, unemployed, and not in the labor force.
The BLS describes the “labor force” as those who hold a job or who are actively seeking a job. Americans who fall under the “not in the labor force” category are either a student, retired, full-time caregiver, or who economists refer to as “discouraged workers”—meaning they have given up on finding a job.
In order to calculate the unemployment rate, the BLS must first find the number of Americans in the labor force by adding together those who are employed and unemployed. This number is then applied to the number of unemployed people to find the unemployment rate.
