US / Proportion of Population With Job Improves in December finds Gallup

The U.S. Payroll to Population employment rate (P2P), as measured by Gallup, was 44.4% for the month of December, a slight improvement over 43.7% in November. The current P2P rate still does not match the levels of employment seen in July through October, which exceeded 45% and were the highest since Gallup began tracking P2P in January 2010.

Seasonally Unadjusted Unemployment Little Changed Over November

Unlike Gallup’s P2P rate, which is a percentage of the total population, traditional employment metrics, such as the unemployment rates Gallup and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, are based on the percentage of the workforce. The “workforce” is defined as adults who are working or actively looking and available for employment. December’s workforce participate rate was 66.8%, a slight decline over November 2012 (67.2%) and December 2011 (67.1%).

Gallup’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate for the U.S. workforce was 7.7% for the month of December, statistically unchanged from 7.8% at the end of November. Gallup’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.9%, a 0.4-point decline over November. Gallup calculates a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate by applying the adjustment factor the government used for the same month in the previous year. Last year, the government adjusted December up by 0.2 points.

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via U.S. Payroll to Population Rate Improves in December.