Employment and Wages
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics is the primary agency responsible for collecting data on employment and unemployment. Click on http://www.bls.gov/data/. This is a website that enables you to review a variety of data on the economy.
Click on the link for “Employment” at the top. A variety of tables can be viewed.
Click the first box under “Top Picks” and you will see a variety of tables that can be generated.
Select the boxes next to the table: “Manufacturing Employment.” Then at the bottom, hit “retrieve data.”
i) Review one month over the past 10 years. What is the trend in manufacturing jobs nationally?
Return to the starting website and review data on the unemployment rate.
j) What is the current unemployment rate?
k) What has been the unemployment rate in your area in the past 5 years?
l) What are the rates in various states (5) around the United States in the past 5 years?
