Unemployment Claims & Rates

1. UNEMPLOYMENT
Connor Butts
PRINCIPLES OF
MACROECONOMICS

2. Unemployment is a known as a
circumstance that takes place when a
person who is at least 16 years of age, is
“actively” seeking employment, but is
incapable of finding work.

3. Unemployment plays a factor in two of the
three “types of economic indicators”.
Unemployment claims are classified as
leading indicators, which are changes that
occur before real GDP changes.
Unemployment rates are classified as
lagging indicators, which are changes that
occur after real GDP changes.

4. Frictional: Changing Jobs, entering, re-
entering, or seasonally unemployed.
Structural: Mismatch between skills of
workers and skills required for employment
opportunities.
Cyclical: Lack of jobs during the time of a
recession.

5.  Michigan is one of the few states that have a
various amount of seasons that affect the way
business is operated.
 This could lead people to believing that most
of Michigan’s unemployment is frictional due
to people typically being laid off during the
Winter seasons.

6. Michigan’s unemployment rate during 2009
rose to 15.2%, becoming the first state in
25 years to experience unemployment
rates exceeding 15%.
The main factor wasn’t frictional, but in fact
cyclical. Michigan has been damaged by
the downfall of the auto and housing
industries.

7. In October of 2009, the national
unemployment rate peaked at 10%.

8. The recovery of employment within the U.S.
typically continues to be dull and inactive
year after year.

9. Reasons for remaining so sluggish are due
to containing too many anchors weighing
us down, such as our typical weakness in
the housing market.
This type of weakness has kept residential
construction at levels of depression.

10. Historically, U.S. recoveries have typically
featured from a “lift” from housing markets,
although this didn’t happen in recoveries
during 2011.
The good news is that residential
construction has stopped falling, but
unfortunately, housing prices were still
declining on average at a slow rate.

11. According to the week ending April 22, the
prior data for seasonally adjusted initial
claims was 257,000.
Up 14,000 from the prior week’s revised
number, which was worse than a forecast
predicted by investing.com of 245,000.

13. Statewide: Today, Michigan has an average
unemployment rate of 4.8%.
Total Employed: 4,635,542
Total Unemployed: 233,346
National: Today the U.S. has an average
unemployment rate of 5.6%, giving Michigan’s rate
0.8 percentage points fewer, indicating better
unemployment conditions than most of the states.

14.  http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-
answers/michigan-unemployment-tops-15-us-department-labor-
reported-michigan-s-unemployment-rate-20-q10598837
 http://unemployment-rates.careertrends.com/l/17/Michigan
 https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-u-s-economy-is-it-finally-
recovering/
 https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2017/04/27/we
ekly-unemployment-claims-up-another-14k-worse-than-forecast
 http://media.graytvinc.com/images/UIA-LOGO_392045_7.png
 https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/politics-
unemployment-unemployment_centre-job_losses-downsizing-
breakfast_cereals-jsh131105_low.jpg